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AMERICA 

THE LAND WE LOVE 






—AMERICA FOR HUMANITY— 

7, the Undersigned, hereby pledge my Loyalty to "America: 
The Land We Love" and do here covenant myself to support by 
iLoid and deed the Principles set forth in The Declaration of In- 
dependence and the Doctrines Established in the Constitution of 
the U nited Slates. 

I affirm my Faith in the Cardinal Principles of Liberty, Jus- 
tice, and Equality throughout the World — regardless of Race, 
Creed, Sex or Birthplace, subscribing to our Nation's policy: 
''America for Humanity.'" 

I consecrate myself to the High Ideals and Sacred Duties of 
American Citizenship, to the protection of Home and Country, and 
to the maintenance of the Honor of the Republic in my Civic, So- 
cial and Business Relations — "with malice toward None and 
Charity for All." 

Sealed with my signature on this 
.... day of . . . ., in the 
year of 

{Sign here) 



AMERICA 

THE LAND WE LOVE 



A NARRATIVE RECORD 

OF THE 

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

THEIR HISTORY— GOVERNMENT— WARS— INVENTIONS— DISCOVERIES 

—GREAT MEN— FAMOUS W^OMEN— INDUSTRY— COMMERCE— AND 

THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS THAT HAVE ENTERED 

INTO THE BUILDING OF THE REPUBLIC 



BY 

FRANCIS TREVELYAN MILLER, LL.D., Litt. D. 

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE TEN VOLUME "PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR," 
AUTHOR OF "AMERICAN HERO TALES," "PORTRAIT LIFE OF LINCOLN," 
"WONDER STORIES," FOUNDER OF THE JOURNAL OF 
AMERICAN HISTORY 



WITH EXCERPTS FROM EPOCH-MAKING SPEECHES BY 

WOODROW WILSON, WILLIAM H. TAFT, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 

PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES 



THREE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS 
HISTORIC ENGRAVINGS — FAMOUS PAINTINGS — PHOTOGRAPHS 



NEW YORK 

WILLIAM THOMAS BLAINE 

MCMXVI 






Copyright 1915 
THE SEARCH-LIGHT BOOK CORPORATION 

(Egbert Gilliss Handy, President) 

New York 



^?\^ 



J. F. TAPLEY CO. 

NCW YORK t 

DEC 15(915 

©CI.A418037 




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PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT 

IT is a privilege as well as a duty to present this volume to the Amer- 
ican people under the inspiring title: "America: The Land We 
Love," covering its 400 years of progress and growth. It is a book 
with a great mission to perform; a book with a message. It has a 
public service to render which we believe has not come within the province 
of a single volume since the founding of the American Nation. 

This book, therefore, is in the nature of a national survey for the 
whole American People — regardless of creed, race, sex, political faith or 
birthplace — a book for the hundred million Americans, uniting them all 
under a common standard. Its purpose is to arouse them to an under- 
standing of their potential power — their past achievements, their present 
greatness, and their future opportunities — to awaken in them the full 
realization of the magnitude of their obligations and responsibilities to 
American citizenship. 

This National awakening can be accomplished only through one 
force — that is, the public press, the miracle of advancing civilization — the 
greatest single force in the moulding of National character, in developing 
the latent resources of a people, enlightening their minds, and generating 
the elements that result in the rise or fall of nations. Through the loyal 
co-operation of the American press, this volume undertakes to lay before 
the American people a narrative record of their achievements — their His- 
tory, Government, Wars, Inventions, Discoveries, Great Men, Famous 
Women, and all the essential elements that have entered into the building 
of the Republic to the first position among all nations. 

It is sufficient to state that this work is under the direction of Dr. 
Miller, a historian who has performed many notable services to his coun- 
try. (See title page.)' Under his supervision a national board of investi- 
gators and researchers have examined carefully every phase of our National 
progress. They have analyzed the evidence presented by more than 1,500 
authorities. This examination covers every available source of accurate 
information and includes the judgment of the most eminent American his- 
torians. It is not only a work of approved scholarship and authenticity, 
but an expression of loyalty for a common cause — our nation's lofty prin- 
ciples of liberty, justice and equality — an endeavor to instill National 
spirit, to organize National unity, to rally every loyal American to the 
National pledge of AMERICA FOR HUMANITY. The wonderful and 
inspiring story of American civilization is unfolded in graphic narrative in 
these pages to give the reader a comprehensive understanding at a glance 
of "AMERICA: The Land We Love," and to impress him with a correct 
knowledge of the great honor and distinction of being an American citizen. 

William Thomas Blaine. 
11 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTORY 

PAGE 

America for Humanity — American Flag on Field of White as the Ensign of 
the World's Liberty and Peace — Emblazoned by Dr. Robert S. Freedman 
of New York — Originally designed by Mr. Henry Petit of Philadelphia 
on plan suggested by Dr. William Osborne McDowell of New York . . 3 

The New Declaration of Independence — A Pledge for Every American — 

Written for this volume by Dr. Francis Trevelyan Miller 5 

America — The Beacon of Liberty — Frontispiece painted for this volume 

by Carl Lotave 6 

Dedication — Illuminated Title Page — Painted by Carl Lotave 9 

Publisher's Statement — By William T. Blaine 11 

America — My Country 'Tis of Thee — Words and Music 19 

America — The Land We Love — A New National Anthem — By Dr. Francis 

Trevelyan Miller and Hon. Henry Taylor Blake 20 

Historian's Foreword — The Purpose of this volume 21 

EPOCH-MAKING SPEECHES 

America — The Hope of the World 25 

By Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States (1913-1917) 

American Liberty— The Stability of Freedom 30 

By William H. Taft, President of the United States (1909-1913) 

American Ideals — Liberty, Justice, Equality 35 

By Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States (1901-1909) 

PART I— HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 

chapter page 

I America and the Americans — A Graphic Description of the United 

States and its people as they Exist To-day — Magnitude, Ideals, etc. 43 

II Narrative History of the American People — A complete concise 
survey of the Discovery and Development of the American Con- 
tinent — covering 400 years including Great American Political Cam- 
paigns ss 

III Government of the American People — A clear interpretation of the 
Government of the United States showing the actual operations of its 

various departments 141 

12 



CONTENTS 

PART II— GREAT EVENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IV Great American Wars 167 

PART III— GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS 

V Great American Inventions 201 

VI American Triumphs of Engineering 243 

> PART IV— GREAT INSTITUTIONS 

VII Great American Industries 277 

VIII Great American Railroads and Commerce 306 

IX Great Americatj Mines 329 

X Great American Agriculture 347 

XI Great American Banks 361 

XII Great American Newspapers 368 

PART V— GREAT AMERICANS 

XIII Great American Statesmen 383 

XIV Great American Soldiers 393 

XV Great American Jurists 401 

XVI Great American Financiers . 410 

XVII Great American Authors 421 

XVIII Great American Artists 436 

XIX Great American Composers 448 

XX Great American Educators 460 

XXI Great American Women 468 

PART VI— HISTORIC AMERICAN SHRINES 

XXII Grandeur of American Scenery 480 

XXIII Beautiful American Parks 493 

XXIV Great American Architecture 497 

XXV Great American Museums 504 

(Contents continued on page 14) 

13 



COLLECTIONS OF HISTORIC PAINTINGS-ENGRAVINGS-PHOTOGRAPHS 



GALLERY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES WITH AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURES— 

Twenty-seven etchings by Audibert — Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. Irving E. 
Rines and permission of the American Educational Alliance. 



George Washington 
John Adams 
Thomas Jefferson 
James Madison 
James Monroe 
John Quincy Adams 
Andrew Jackson 
Martin Van Buren 
William Henry Harrison 
Masterpieces from the 



John Tyler 
James K. Polk 
Zachary Taylor 
Millard Fillmore 
Franklin Pierce 
James Buchanan 
Abraham Lincoln 
Andrew Johnson 
Ulysses S. Grant 



OF 



Rutherford B. Hayes 
James A. Garfield 
Chester A. Arthur 
Grover Cleveland 
Benjamin Harrison 
William McKinley 
Theodore Roosevelt 
William Howard Taft 
Woodrow Wilson 
Art — Reproductions 



by 



Metropolitan Museum 
special permission from: 
Morgan Collection Altman Collection 

Vanderbilt Collection Marquand Collection 

Huntington Collection Hearn Collection 

Coles Collection Van Horn Collection 

Dun Collection Smith Collection 

EXHIBITS FROM THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 
Reproductions by Special Permission 
PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEYS THROUGH THE FORTY-EIGHT 

STATES 
Complete Collection of Reproductions of State Capitols 
Alabama Illinois Minnesota North Carolina Tennessee 

Arizona Indiana Mississippi North Dakota Texas 

Arkansas Iowa Missouri Ohio Utah 

California Kansas Montana Oklahoma Vermont 

Colorado Kentucky Nebraska Oregon ^ Virginia 

Connecticut Louisiana Nevada Pennsylvania Washington ^ 

Delaware Maine New Hampshire Rhode Island West Virginia 

Florida Maryland New Jersey South Carolina Wisconsin 

Georgia Massachusetts New Mexico South Dakota Wyoming 

Idaho Michigan New York 

PORTO RICO— HAWAII— ALASKA— PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

RARE ENGRAVINGS OF GREAT EVENTS AND WARS 

From Collection in the The Search-Light Library 

PHOTOGRAPHIC TOURS THROUGH AMERICA 

Collection of Photographic Prints Showing the Mountains, Rivers, Agricultural and 

Mineral Wealth, and Scenic Grandeur of America 
Hudson River Colorado Canyon Panama Canal 

Niagara Falls Yellowstone Park Great Lakes 

White Mountains Yosemite Valley Mississippi River ^ 

Natural Bridge Garden of the Gods Pacific and Atlantic States 

Together with other photographs, covering the various phases of American Life, 
making a collection of about 300 historic illustrations. 

u 




eie tne ^^^P'^'^'at^ from the world s great powers meet the President on State occasions— 
i>iomentous problems are discussed in this room. 



in Washing- 




WTIOWI <'\l'ir(M \'l- \V\SI11NCT(..N This niamuli.M.iil stnnlmv is a monument to deinocracy—It. covers an 
-^-^'"*-^^'' •^''""- -^ ' wA.iii. , ^^^_^ uiiyiual building was laid by Washington m l(9^>. 



ftrca of 153,112 square feet— The corner-stone of th 




EAT Ol I 111: A. \li:i;i( AX GOVERNMENT— It is here that the American people are molding the destiny of the 
republic— ibis is where the Congress of the United States and the Supreme Court convenes. 




^\ASIII^GTON AT TltLM'ON — This engruviug by iaed portrays the Commander-in-Chief of the 
Amenean Revolution at tlie moment of Victory — Washington was unanimously elected hy 
Congress to lead the American forces in the War for American Independence on 
June 15, 1775 — He led them to triumph, after seven years of heroic 
struggle — Bidding farewell to his army, he resigned his com- 
mission and retired to his home at Mt. Vernon 
on December 23, 1783. 



i 



My Country, 'Tis of Thee 



Samuel FRANcrs Smith. 

KOOCDkTO 



UNKNOWN. 
AIR. "600 SAVE THE K1N8.' 




My 
My 
Let 
Our 



coun 
na • 
mu 
fa - 



• try, 

tiv€ 

sic 

thers* 



'tis 
coua 
swell 
God, 



of 
try, 
the 
to 



thee, Sweet 
thee— Land 
breeze. And 
Thee, Au • 



land 

of 
ring 

thor 



of 

the 

from 

of 



lib 
no 
all 
lib 



er . ty, 
ble free— 

the trees 

er - ty, 




& 




Of thee 1 sing; 

Thy name I love; 

S weet free - dom's song ; 

To Thee we sing ; 



Land where my 

I love thy 

Let mor • tal 

Long may our 

/4L 



fa • thers died, Land of the 

rocks and rills, Thy woods and 
tongues a - wake ; Let all that 

land be bright With free - dom's 





Pil - grim's pride ; 
tern • pled bills; 
breathe par -take; 
ho - ly light; 



From 
My 
Let 

Pro ■ 



ev • 


'ry 


moun 


heart 


with 


rap 


rocks 


their 


si . 


tect 


us 


by 



tain side, Let free - dom ring. 

ture thrills. Like that a - bove. 
lence break — The sound pro • long. 
Thy might. Great God, our King. 




AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

A New National Anthem 
By 

FRANCIS TREVELYAN MILLER and HENRY TAYLOR BLAKE 

(To be sung to the tune "My Country 'tis of Thee" — See Music on Page 19) 



All hail ! Beloved Land ! 
Our own Columbia grand 

Whose flag unfurled 
In majesty and might 
Calls with its starry light 
To all who love the Right 

Throughout the world! 

II 

Hark! From Atlantic shores, 
To where Pacific roars 

In ceaseless boom; 
From never-melting snows, 
To where the orange grows. 
And lilies and the rose, 

Forever bloom. 

Ill 

Hear ye the trampling hum 
Of thronging peoples, come 

To bide with thee! 
Thy boundless plains to till, 
Draw wealth from every hill, 
And myriad cities fill 

With industry! 

IV 

All! All, thy children true; 
Whatever climes we knew 

For Fatherlands, 
To thee, our Mother now. 
In loyal love we bow, 
And pledge with joyous vow 

Our hearts and hands! 



Thus Nature moves apace 
Building a mighty race 
American I 



To form her latest born 
The varied brains and brawn 
From all the nations drawn 
She blends in one! 

VI 

O! Father of all good! 

Grant that with mingling blood 

And blending soul. 
Perfecting nature's art. 
Each nation may impart 
Its noblest traits of heart 

To crown the whole ! 

VII 

Our lives we consecrate 

To Freedom, Home and State 

To Love and God! 
To Justice — Liberty; 
To true Equality; 
To all Humanity — 

World Brotherhood! 

VIII 

All hail the Age of Gold 
When in that perfect mould 

Peace reigns above ! 
Valor and Truth, with awe 
For Justice throned on law 
Shall rule America 

The Land we Love ! 

IX 

And in those glorious hours 

When from their thrones all powers 

Of Wrong are hurled ! 
Columbia! Still on 
Uplift thy stars to sky ! 
Goddess of Liberty 

Lighting the World/ 



high 



20 



AMERICA 

HISTORIAN'S FOREWORD 

AMERICA: The Land We Love"-There is no grander 
epic than that of a Hundred Million People gathered into 
one loyal nation pledged to the support of the principles of 
intellerK . /T'"™''>' ^"f "'"^'ng conscientiously with their hands and 
wnes V L^ ''7"^-d souls, to build a nation upon the foundation 
stones . Uberty, Justice, Equality. It is the "Odyssey" of a strong virile 
people that has entered the world's arena not as a conqueror but alth 

cemurle? ' "" "' '"""' "''* '""^""^ ^^= ''-" ^'™gg'-g f" -venty 
The record of such deeds and ideals is well worthy of a Josephus or a 
Herodotus It ca Is for a Thueydides to narrate the heroic st uggles of 
such a nation, a Plutarch to relate the stories of its great men, allvy o 
Sallust or Tacitus to proclaim its grandeur. Here on the Western Hem" 
sphere .here has arisen a modern phcenix based on the noblest principles of 

and ArLt'lI Ttfr"- ''^ f'"' f ^"^^ '' *^ ^'^'^'^^ ''^-'i- °'p^^ 
Justinian H I J t' "="'""'"" °^ *^ '^g'^'^«°" °f Solon and 

eaXathere^ to "' f ' '""'■ '"'^ '^^'"^'^'"^ "^ ^" "'^ ?»?'« "^ the 

earth gathered o create a new nation dedicated to the service of humanity. 

mn., ; ■".*" '""""'^ ''"'^^'^^ «f ^-^ Twentieth Century-the 

most portentous period thus far in the world's history-are witness'^ Ae 
gi^atest social, economic, and political revolution in the annals o^man- 
kmd Civilization IS passing through the crucible; society is undergoing 

underlying the^ revolutions-or more properly .t,«&//<,„._agree Aat 
Aese crises, rather than being a reversion to medievalism or the overthw 
of organized government, are in fact the birth-throes of a new period i^ 
the history of mankind-the birth of higher ideals, more perfL sy tems 
c oser brotherhood among the peoples of the eard.-a step toward a h X; 
state of civilization, which, like the human race, is bom in blood. ^ 
It IS well, therefore, that we as Americans linger over these nages for 

s fpe^rr "• f "^"'"^ "' "'' ""''"^^ ''''' - tett Tur'^lmt 
structure i; ^ T '^^- ""^ r"""'"''' '° ^^vey our country, and inspect the 
structure of civilization that we have built. This book is an evaluation 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

of their achievements — an exposition of the products of their creation. 
The conventional treatment and technique of the historian have been set 
aside in the preparation of this book, and a more democratic treatment is 
used to enlarge its service and more completely meet the needs of a broad 
democracy. 

The whole story of American civilization is unfolded in graphic nar- 
rative which will give the reader a comprehensive understanding at a 
glance. The Editorial Board has considered it advisable to organize this 
work into Farts. 

It has been deemed fitting to open this memorial volume with three 
messages to the A?nerican Feople by the three most Eminent Americans — 
President Wilson, and former Presidents Taft and Roosevelt. These ex- 
pressions of staunch Americanism are taken from their public addresses 
and form appropriate introductories to this book. 

The literary pages of this book (Part I) begin with a graphic descrip- 
tion of the United States — "America and the Atnerican People'' — as they 
exist to-day; their magnitude and ideals, — their fiber and character. The 
reader then surveys in concise, visualizing style, the whole "Story of the 
American Feople" from the discovery of the Western Continent, the found- 
ing and development of the American Nation, and the wonderful growth 
of the American race — ^oo years of human activity. This includes a sum- 
mary of "Great American Political Campaigns,^ tracing the rise and fall 
of the various schools of economic thought as expressed through our politi- 
cal parties. From this follows a clear interpretation of the "Government 
of the United States^' showing the actual operations of its various 
departments. 

This, in itself, might be considered a very good service to the Ameri- 
can people, but we have desired to make this book more than a history; we 
have undertaken to make it a vital human record. It was Dionysius of 
Halicarnassus who said: "History is Philosophy teaching by experience." 
But Carlyle added the vital touch when he said : "History, as it lies at the 
root of all science, is also the first distinct product of man's spiritual na- 
ture," remarking that "histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and 
is gifted with an eye and a soul." So it is in this volume that we have 
undertaken to give it an "eye and a soul." We have taken the record of 
man's life in America and endeavored to present the sum of his achieve- 
ments, with here and there an interpretation of its economic and sociological 
import. 

Great Events are presented in Part II of the volume. It begins with 
the story of the "Great American Wars'" — their causes and results — with 
a broad sketch of the battles and dramatic incidents. 



HISTORIAN'S FOREWORD 

The American people do not depend alone upon their prowess in war 
or their sagacity in politics as the chief reason of their existence. They 
are a people with far nobler claims to a physical and spiritual existence. 
Thus, in Part III of this volume we survey our Great Achievements, with a 
passing consideration of the Great American Discoveries and their con- 
tributions to Human Progress through the "Great American Inventions" 
proving that we are indeed the most ingenious and inventive race in the 
world's history. This is followed by an inspiring chapter on "American 
Triumphs in Engineering," the building of the Panama Canal, great 
bridges, huge dams, tunnels, subways, and similar achievements. 

A wise old classicist once complained that "history makes haste to 
record great deeds, but often neglects good ones." This is indeed a just 
criticism, but it is quite probable that the good deeds are in fact the 
greatest. The final test of civilization is in the strength of its three foun- 
dations: ''Agriculture — Commerce — Industry.'' These are the basis of 
all permanent society — the great "trinity" of civilization. Hence, in 
Part IV we have laid before our readers the static record of their civiliza- 
tion — a rapid glance at the Great American Industries, Mines, Railroads, 
Agriculture, Manufacturing — and all that represents the inventoried wealth 
and material interests of a nation, with a brief description of the Banking 
System, and its mediums for intercommunication and mutual knowledge 
through the great clearing houses of information and public opinion which 
we call the "Great American Newspapers.'' 

Carlyle in his essays remarks that "history is the essence of innumer- 
able biographies." And so in this volume we have introduced in Part V 
a series of little talks on "Great Americans.'*- In these little fifteen minute 
conversations we have endeavored to discuss the essential phases of the 
character and work of the American people — their Great Statesmen, Sol- 
diers, Jurists, Financiers, Scientists, Educators, Authors, Artists, Theolo- 
gians, Composers, Women — with now and then a glimpse into the 
psychology of human action. The limitations of space, however, have 
allowed us only to suggest the possibilities of further study in this field of 
human equations, using only the foremost figures for the purpose of "teach- 
ing by examples." 

The esthetic spirit of the American people is given recognition in Part 
VI. Here we cast a mental vision for the "Scenic Grandeur of America^' 
and pass through the "Beautiful American Parks." We view the "Famous 
American Architecture" and visit the Historic American Shrines, with a 
brief sojourn in the "Great American Museums." 

But this is not all — we live in a country so vast that no man can fully 
comprehend its broad expanse, its imperial greatness, who has not jour- 

23 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

neyed over its plains and mountains teeming with illimitable wealth; it 
is a democracy in empire. Alcott in one of his essays truly says that 
"travel makes all men countrymen, makes people noblemen and kings, 
every man tasting of liberty and dominion" ; while Fuller gives this good 
advice: "Know most of the rooms of thy Native Country before thou 
goest over the threshold thereof." And so we go on a photographic series 
of ''Little Journeys Through the States'^- — forty-eight journeys through 
the States of New England, the Eastern States, Southern States, Middle 
West, Southwest, Great West, and the Pacific States — with four journeys 
into our Insular Possessions — Porto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines — and a 
trip to Alaska. After our return from these literary journeys we may 
exclaim with Menander, "Hail, dear Country ! I embrace thee, seeing thee 
after a long time," and with the poet, "O beautiful and grand, my own 
my Native Land I" 

The subject "America — The Land We Love" embraces so magnifi- 
cent a field of human action that a library of monumental works might 
readily be erected under this name. Alas, we have but one volume here 
in which to encompass half a world. It is necessary, therefore, that we 
keep this volumie as compact as possible — inspiring the reader with its 
illimitable possibilities. 

The material for this volume has been gathered only by exhaustive 
researches into more than 1,500 sources, including the Congressional Li- 
brary, the Government Archives, the historical societies throughout the 
States, and the leading Universities. I am especially indebted to Mr. 
Egbert Gilliss Handy, founder of the Search-Light Library, for the col- 
lection of photographic records; to Mr. W. T. Blaine, as publisher; to 
Mr. E. D. Appleton, who directed the publication, and to the investigators : 
Mr. Walter R. Bickford, Mr. Gabriel Schlesinger, Mr. David St. Clair, 
Mr. Herbert G. Wintersgill, Mr. Andre Tridon. 

We trust that the volume may perform its humble service to Our 
Country by awakening our people individually to the tremendous respon- 
sibility which rests upon them and by inspiring them to the essential 
attributes of a democracy — good, conscientious citizenship and the un- 
selfish, intelligent administration of government. In this epoch of pro- 
gressive Americanism, we need not pledge ourselves to that historic toast 
of Admiral Decatur, "Our Country I May she always be in the right, 
but Our Country right or wrong!" Neither need we adopt that intense 
patriotism of Daniel Webster: "Let our object be, Our Country, our 
whole country, and nothing but our country." But rather let us adopt 
the broader words of President Wilson — the expression of world vision 
and world justice: "America for Humanity I" 

Francis Trevelyan Miller. 
24 



AMERICA 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 

* Message to "New Americans," 

BY WOODROW WILSON 



THIS is the only country in the world which experiences constant 
and repeated rebirth. Other countries depend upon the multi- 
plication of their own native people. This country is con- 
stantly drinking strength out of new sources by the voluntary 
association with it of great bodies of strong men and forward-looking 
women. And so by the gift of the free-will of independent people it is 
constantly being renewed from generation to generation by the same proc- 
ess by which it was originally created. It is as if humanity had deter- 
mined to see to it that this great nation, founded for the benefit of 
humanity, should not lack for the allegiance of the people of the world. 
You have taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of 
allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be God. Cer- 
tainly not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this great 
Government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to 
a great body of principles, to a great hope of the human race. You have 
said, "We are going to America," not only to earn a living, not only to 
seek the things which it was more difficult to obtain where you were born, 
but to help forward the great enterprises of the human spirit — to let men 
know that everywhere in the world there are men who will cross strange 
oceans and go where a speech is spoken which is alien to them, knowing 
that, whatever the speech, there is but one longing and utterance of the 
human heart, and that is for liberty and justice. 

And while you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose 
of leaving all other countries behind you — bringing what is best of their 
spirit, but not looking over your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate 
what you intended to leave in them. I certainly would not be one even 
to suggest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation 
of his origin — these things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of 
our hearts — but it is one thing to love the place where you were born and 
it is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you go. You 
cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every respect and 

• Historic Address by President Wilson delivered to New Citizens in Philadelphia directly after their 
naturalization, in which they swore allegiance to the United States, 

25 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot be- 
come thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America 
does not consist of groups. A man who thinks himself as belonging to a 
particular national group in America has not yet become an American, and 
the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy 
son to live under the Stars and Stripes. 

My urgent advice to you is not only always to think first of America, 
but always, also, to think first of humanity. You do not love humanity 
if you seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can be 
welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice, not by jealousy 
and hatred. I am sorry for the man who seeks to make personal capital 
out of the passions of his fellow-men. He has lost the touch and ideal 
to unite mankind by those passions which lift and not by the passions which 
separate and debase. 

We came to America, either ourselves or in persons of our ancestors, 
to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had 
seen before, to get rid of things that divide, and to make sure of the things 
that united. It was but an historical accident no doubt that this great 
country was called the "United States," and yet I am very thankful that 
it has the word "united" in its title; and the man who seeks to divide man 
from man, group from group, interest from interest, in the United States 
is striking at its very heart. 

It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in thinking of those of you 
who have sworn allegiance to this great Government, that you were drawn 
across the ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief, by 
some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expectation of a better kind 
of life. No doubt you have been disappointed in some of us; some of 
us are very disappointing. No doubt you have found that justice in the 
United States goes only with a pure heart and a right purpose, as it does 
everywhere else in the world. No doubt what )^ou found here did not 
seem touched for you, after all, with the complete beauty of the ideal 
which you had conceived beforehand. But remember this, if we had 
grown at all poor in the ideal, you brought some of it with you. A man 
does not go out to seek the thing that is not in him. A man does not hope 
for the thing that he does not believe in, and if some of us have forgotten 
what America believed in, you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts 
a renewal of the belief. 

I was born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was 
to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man that does 
not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enter- 
prise. Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more likely 

26 




BIRTHPLACE OF DEOLARATIUN OF INDEPENDENCE— Historic- Independence Hall in 

I liiladephia — Here the Continental Congress held its sessions ; Washington was 

appointed commander-in-chief of armies — Constitution of United States was framed, 



"AMERICA— THE HOPE OF THE WORLD" 

to realize the dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you 
came expecting us to be better than we are. 

See, my friends, what that means. It means that Americans must 
have a consciousness different from the consciousness of every other nation 
in the world. I am not saying this with even the slightest thought of 
criticism of other nations. You know how it is with a family. A family 
gets centered on itself if it is not careful and is less interested in the neigh- 
bors than it is in its own members. So a nation that is not constantly 
renewed out of new sources is apt to have the narrowness and prejudice 
of a family. Whereas, America must have this consciousness, that on all 
sides it touches elbows and touches hearts with all the nations of mankind. 

The example of America must be a special example. The example 
of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not 
fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of 
the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too 
proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it 
does not need to convince others by force that it is right. 

So, if you come into this great nation, as you have come, voluntarily 
seeking something that we have to give, all that we have to give is this: 
We cannot exempt you from work. No man is exempt from work any- 
where in the world. I sometimes think he is fortunate if he has to work 
only with his hands and not with his head. It is very easy to do what 
other people give you to do, but it is very difficult to give other people 
things to do. We cannot exempt you from work; we cannot exempt you 
from the strife and the heart-breaking burden of the struggle of the day — 
that is common to mankind everywhere. We cannot exempt you from the 
loads that you must carry; we can only make them light by the spirit in 
which they are carried. That is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of lib- 
erty, it is the spirit of justice. 

I like to come and stand in the presence of a great body of my fellow- 
citizens, whether they have been my fellow-citizens a long time or a short 
time, and drink, as it were, out of the common fountains with them and 
go back feeling that you have so generously given me the sense of your 
support and of the living vitality in your hearts, of its great ideals which 
make America the hope of the world. 

— ^WooDROw Wilson. 



29 



AMERICAN LIBERTY 
THE STABILITY OF FREEDOM 



* Message to the American People 

BY WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 

President of the United States (1909-1913) 

F we would stand on solid and safe ground we must re-examine the 
fundamental principles of stable popular government. The history ' 
of the world seems to show that our form of government is more en- ^ 
during and satisfactory than any other. We began as a small Union ' 
of thirteen states, strung along the Atlantic Coast, of three millions of 
people, and under the same Constitution we have enlarged to be a world 
power of forty-eight sovereign states, bound into one ; of more than ninety 
millions of people, and with a humane guardianship of ten millions more 
— nine in the Pacific and one in the Atlantic. We have fought, begin- 
ning with the Revolution, four foreign wars, and we have survived a civil 
war of the greatest proportions recorded in history, and have united the 
battling sections by an indissoluble tie. From our body politic we have 
excised the cancer of slavery, the only thing protected by the Constitu- 
tion which was inconsistent with that liberty, the preservation of which 
was the main purpose of establishing the Union. We have increased our 
business and productive activities in every direction; we have expanded 
the development of our natural resources to be continent-wide, and all the 
time we have maintained sacred those inalienable rights of man, the right 
of liberty, the right of private property and the right to the pursuit of 
happiness. 

For these reasons we believe in popular government. Government 
is a human instrumentality to secure the greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber and the greatest happiness to the individual. Experience, and espe- 
cially the growth of popular govemment in our own history, has shown 
that in the long run every class of the people, and by that I mean those 
similarly situated, are better able to secure attention to their welfare than 
any other class, however altruistic the latter class may be. Of course 
this assumes that the members of the class have reasonable intelligence and 
capacity for knowing their own rights and interest. 

Hence it follows that the best government, in the sense of the gov- 
ernment most certain to provide for and protect the rights and govem- 

* Excerpt from Address delivered by President Taft on the "Judiciary and Progress" at Toledo, 
OMo. 

30 



AJVIERICAN LIBERITY— STABILITY OF FREEDOM 

mental needs of every class, is that one in which every class has a voice. 
In recognition of this, the tendency from earliest times in our history has 
been the enlargement of the electorate to include in the ultimate source 
of governmental power as many as possible of those governed. But even 
to-day the electorate is not more in number than one-fourth of the total 
number of those who are citizens of the nation and are the people for 
whom the government is maintained and whose rights and happiness the 
government is intended to secure. More than this, government by unan- 
imous vote of the electorate is impossible, and therefore the majority of 
the electorate must rule. 

We find, therefore, that government by the people is, under our 
present system, government by a majority of one-fourth of those whose 
rights and happiness are to be affected by the course and conduct of 
the government. This is the nearest to a government by the whole people 
we have ever had. Woman's suffrage will change this, and it is doubtless 
coming as soon as the electorate can be certain that most women desire it 
and will assume its burden and responsibility. But even then the elec- 
torate will only be part of the whole people. In other words, the electo- 
rate is a representative governing body for the whole people for which 
the government was established, and the controlling majority of the elec- 
torate is a body still less numerous. 

It is thus apparent that ours is a government of all the people by 
a representative part of the people. The object of government is not only 
to secure the greatest good to the greatest number, but also to do this as 
near as may be by securing the rights of each individual in his liberty, 
property and pursuit of happiness. 

Hence it was long ago recognized that the direct action of a tem- 
porary majority of the existing electorate must be limited by fundamental 
law; that is, by a constitution intended to protect the individual and the 
minority of the electorate and the non-voting majority of the people 
against the unjust or arbitrary action of the majority of the electorate. 

This made it necessary to introduce into the Constitution certain dec- 
larations as to the rights of the individual which it was the purpose of 
the whole people to maintain through the government against the aggres- 
sion of any temporary majority of the electorate and to provide in the 
same instrument certain procedure by which the individual might assert 
and vindicate those rights. Then, to protect against the momentary im- 
pulse of a temporary majority of the electorate to change the fundamental 
law and deprive the individual or the voting minority or the non-voting 
majority of inalienable rights, the Constitution provided a number of 
checks and balances whereby every amendment to the Constitution must 

31 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

be adopted under forms and with delays that are intended to secure much 
deliberation on the part of the electorate in adopting such amendments. 
I cannot state the necessity for maintaining the checks and balances in 
a constitution to secure the guarantee of individual rights and well ordered 
liberty better than by quoting from Daniel Webster. He said : 

The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty; and liberty is only 
to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power. 
Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify gov- 
ernment. The simplest governments are despotisms ; the next simplest, limited monarchies ; 
but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications 
of authority and give many positive and many qualified rights. In other words, they must be 
subject to rule and regulation. This is the very essence of free political institutions. The 
spirit of liberty is, indeed, a bold and fearless spirit; but it is also a sharp-sighted spirit; it is a 
cautious, sagacious, discriminating, farseeing intelligence; it is jealous of encroachment, 
jealous of power, jealous of man. It demands checks; it seeks for guards; it insists on se- 
curities; it intrenches itself behind strong defences and fortifies itself with all possible care 
against the assaults of ambition and passion. It does not trust the amiable weaknesses of 
human nature, and therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though 
benevolence, good intent and patriotic purpose come along with it. Neither does it satisfy 
itself with flashy and temporary resistance to illegal authority. Far otherwise. It seeks for 
duration and permanence. It looks before and after ; and, building on the experience of ages 
which are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages to come. This is the nature of 
constitutional liberty; and this is our liberty, if we will rightly understand and preserve it. 

I agree that we are making progress and ought to make progress in the 
shaping of governmental actions to secure greater equality of opportunity, 
to destroy the undue advantage of special privilege and of due advantage 
of special privilege and of accumulated capital, and to remove obstruc- 
tions to the pursuit of human happinesss; and in working out these diffi- 
cult problems we may possibly have, from time to time, to limit or nar- 
row the breadth of constitutional guarantees in respect of property by 
amendment. 

But if we do it, let us do it deliberately, understanding what we are 
doing, and with full consideration and clear weighing of what we are giv- 
ing up of private right for the general welfare. Let us do it under cir- 
cumstances which shall make the operation of the change uniform and just, 
and not depend on the feverish, uncertain and unstable determination of 
successive votes on different laws by temporary and changing majorities. 

— William Howard Taft. 



32 




GREAT AMERICAN rOLITICAL CAMI'AKiXS— National politic 



'*^i- -."^"^-^"j^^ '»^-' i vyj-ji j-iv iii^ V .v.)±i .in..\ .-> — ^NaiioiKU pontics are separated into cti-oii 

political thoug-ht — ^These parties appeal to the people for support at the various election 

— I'hotograph was taken durins: Republican Convention in '"Incnco. 




NOMINATIX(; A CANKIDATE FUR I'RESII )ENT— This is a glimpse of the Democratic Con- 
vention at Raltimore when Woodrow Wilson was nominated — The delegates to these 
conventions gathered from every State in the Union to select the standard bearer, 



AMERICAN IDEALS 
LIBERTY— JUSTICE— EQUALITY 



* Message to the American Nations 

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

President of the United States (1901-1909) 

EVERY great modern civilized state, every state of vast industrial 
possibilities is faced with very complex needs. In grappling 
with American problems the average man is apt to pin his faith 
to half truths. In certain cases the ordinarily accepted ideal 
and the ordinary practice are diametrically opposed to each other. The 
most striking example of this kind is the contrast between our avowed 
ideals and our customary practices in regard to property, wealth and 
riches. Many closet philosophers and many demagogues sneer at material 
wealth and advocate as a matter of theory complete disregard of it; and 
this is the position taken, purely as a matter of theory, by a large num- 
ber of the men who speak of wealth from the pulpit or the rostrum. 
In practice a very much larger number of men make wealth their god and 
pay no heed to any moral laws that bar the way to its acquisition. Here 
each side has seized a half truth which, by itself, spells destruction; the 
theory represents hypocrisy and the practice represents a base and degrad- 
ing materialism. 

Speaking generally, it is true now as it was true in the days of the 
Hebrew seer, that the most useful citizen is apt to be the man who is 
neither bowed by grinding poverty, nor rendered arrogant by excessive 
wealth. Normally a man must earn enough to support himself and those 
dependent upon him in reasonable comfort before he can be of use to the 
community at large. In the same way the community itself must pos- 
sess a reasonable average of material well being before it can take its part 
in advancing the great movements which make all that is worth having 
in our modern civilization. 

Therefore, it is essential that there shall be material prosperity in 
the State, that railroads shall be built, that ranches and farms, business 
houses and factories, shall prosper. To rail at such prosperity is not evi- 
dence of a sound heart. It is merely evidence of an unsound head. En- 
tirely unregulated and uncontrolled individualism under the conditions 
of modem industrialism would lead to a condition of anarchy, injustice 
and misery as frightful as the condition of anarchy, injustice and misery 

* Excerpt from Address delivered by President Roosevelt in Buenos Ayres, Argentine. 

35 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

produced by the unchecked military individualism of the robber baronage 
in the dark ages. Moreover, this unchecked individualism would destroy 
itself. . . . 

We wish to destroy neither collectivism nor individualism. We wish 
to use so much of collectivism as will form the best basis for an altru- 
istic individualism; an individualism which is self-reliant but which 
heartily respects the rights of others. In the industrial world this means 
that there are some things that the State can do which the individual 
should not be permitted to do; some things which should be left to uncon- 
trolled individual action and some things which should be left to indi- 
vidual action exercised under strict governmental control. Where the line 
should be drawn in any case is a mere matter of expediency. 

It is the business of the State to secure a measurable equality of 
opportunity so that each man shall have the chance to show the stuff 
there is in him. Each man should have what he earns and should not 
have what any one else earns. There is wide inequality of capacity and 
character among men; and therefore it is wise and just that there should 
be inequality of reward, because the reward should bear some proportion 
to the service rendered. 

At present in the world of industry the difference in the reward of the 
man at the top and the man lower down is often well nigh infinite, and 
represents a travesty upon justice. And moreover the difference between 
the reward given the man who merely handles the money and the reward 
given the man who actually handles the men and machinery is wholly 
disproportionate to the difference of service. We propose sanely and cau- 
tiously but resolutely to strive to reduce this inequality and to bring about 
a condition of affairs more nearly corresponding to justice. As I have 
before said, we agree with the seer of old that the best ideal for a man 
is neither to suffer grinding poverty nor to possess excessive riches. . . . 

We do not intend to destroy property. We intend to protect prop- 
erty. But we intend to strive for a juster and fairer correspondence 
between the possession of property and the service, whether of mind or of 
body, which warrants such possession. 

Men of valiant soul must be the lords and not the servants of what 
they have themselves created. As long as strength is given us with cool 
heads and fearless hearts we shall war unceasingly against what is evil 
and for what is good, so as to bring nearer the day when justice shall be 
done every man, every woman and every child within the borders of the 
great free commonwealths to which we belong. 

— Theodore Roosevelt. 
36 



THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 



Solo or Quartet. 



Francis Scott Key. 1814. 



I. Oh, say, cai 



i 






-«- 



can you see, by the dawn's ear - ly light,What so proud -ly we hail'd at the 

2. On the shore dim - ly seen thro' the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread 

3. And where is that band who so vaunt-ing - ly swore,That the hav - oc of war and the 

4. Oh, thus be it ev • er when free-men shall stand Be - tween their loved home and wild 




T r t-^f r t 

twi-light's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the per - il 
si - lence re - po • ses. What is that which the Dreeze,o'er the tow - er - 
bat-tie's con-fu - sion, A . . . home and a coun - try should leave us 
war's des - o - la • tion ; Blest with vie ■ fry and peace, may the heav'n-res • 



ous fight, O'er the 

ing steep. As it 

no more? Their 

cued land Praise the 



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ram-parts we watch'd,wereso gal - lant - ly stream-ing? And the rock - ets' red glare, the bombs 
fit - ful - ly blows, half con-ceals, half dis-clos - es r Now it catch - es the gleam of the 
blood has wash'd out their foul foot - steps'pol - lu - tion. No ref - uge could save the 
pow'r that hath made and prc-serv'd us a na - tion ! Then con - quer we must, when our 

N 



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burst-ing in air, Gave proof 
morn-ing'sfirstbeam,In full glo ■ 
hire-ling and slave From the ter - 
cause it is just, And this 



thro'the night that our flag was still 

• ry re - fleet - ed,now shines on the 

ror of flight or the gloom of the 

be our mot - to : "In God is. our 



^m 



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there. Oh, say,does'that 

stream : 'Tis the star-spangled 

grave : And the star-spangled 

trust l"And the star-spangled 



g 






tz 




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Star -spangled ban - ner yet 
ban- ner: oh, long may it 
ban - ner in tri - umph doth 
ban- ner in tri - umph shall 






m^ 



t=t 




wave O'er the land 
wave O'er the land 
wave O'er the land 
wave O'er the land 



of the free, 

of the free, 

of the free, 

of the free, 



fe^^j"-^ ' 



:&==^ 



and the home of the brave I 

and the home of the brave, 

and the home of the brave. 

and the home of the brave. 



r- j i TTf if 



f 



i 



AMERICA— INSPIRING TRIBUTES 

AMERICA is like a great sleeping giant — with its head at the North 
Pole and its feet at the South Pole. Its arms stretch from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. Here it slumbered through the geological 
ages. Four hundred years ago men came like pigmies and ran over 
its huge body ; meeting in deadly combat on its breast ; lifting the lids of slum- 
bering eyes and peering into their depths; putting their ears to the huge heart 
and listening to its mighty beats like the hammer stroke on the anvil. Its 
breath is like the tornadoes; its nostrils are great caverns leading into the 
recesses of life; its lips are strong and decisive, and in its voice there is the 
prophecy of the future of man. 

One hundred and forty years ago the huge giant moved; he opened his 
eyes and became conscious of his existence ; soon he began to stretch his limbs ; 
he broke the bonds that held him down. 

Through the Nineteenth Century, he struggled to his feet; he rose in his 
might to a standing posture; he tested his huge muscles like Vulcan and there 
was born a new iron age; he swept the fields like Ceres and they burst into 
harvest; he wielded the ax like Ajax and the forests fell and were transformed 
into great cities; he swept the rivers and seas like Neptune and they became 
great channels of commerce. Like Argus, he had a hundred eyes that delved 
into the mysteries of the Universe ; he pulled the lightning from the skies ; he 
flashed messages around the earth ; he turned night into day. He arose and 
stands to-day like Atlas supporting the world on his shoulders. This is Amer- 
ica — the land which in the next generations is to be the dynamic force behind 
civilization. — Francis Trevelyan Miller. 



THERE she lies, the great melting pot. Listen! Can't you hear the 
roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth — the harbors 
where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world 
to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seeth- 
ing. Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian, black and yellow, 
Jew and Gentile. Yes ! East and West, the palm and the pine, the pole and 
the Equator, the crescent and the cross, how the great alchemist melts and fuses 
them with his purging flame ! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic 
of Man and the Kingdom of God. Ah, what is the glory to come . . . where 
all nations and races come to worship and look back compared with America 
where all races and nations come to labor and Look Forward ! 

— Israel Zangwill. 



38 




EXECUTIVE OFFICES OF THE AMERICAN NATION— Adniinistnition Building- on White 

House grounds in Washington — It is here that the executive stafE oonducts 

the public and private business of the President. 




SCENE OF MANY HISTORIC BALLS— East room in tlie Whitr il,.ii.- ,,r W.iMiihl;!..,, -Here 

the ambassadors of the nations and the world's greatest celebrities have 

gathered in brilliant throngs in this magnificent room. 



fJ::^^^'VTyr.r.'i>:rtf:-'- -tt,'*- ,.-. 





nVn^^^hv^pP )^HITEHOLSE AT WASHINGTON— This imposing structure was begun in 1792— First occu- 
pied by President Adams in 1800— It was hurned by the British in 1814 and re-built four years 
later— The structure is 170 feet long, 86 feet deep, and two stories in height. 




functions; t.f &riir;;;'^u^r^^^j;H!^^^-,-^'i «'- ^^— 




Hl&lIhSl i;i ILr)IN(; IX 1 111-; U\)KL1>— WoolwortU r.uildiiis- lu New York (,'itv— It towers 55 

stories high — These modern skyscrapers contain as many people as many flourishing towns 

— Structures rise from ten to twenty stories in nearly all laraje cities of United States 



CHAPTER I 



AMERICA 
AND THE AMERICANS 



"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 



A: 



*' ]^ MERICA for Humanity" — This is the key-note of the Amer- 
ica and the Americanism that stands before the world to-day 
as the champion of the new era of World Democracy — 
Liberty, Justice and Equality for the peoples of the earth. 
There are in the great human family to-day nearly 2,000,000,000 
people. They are divided into about seventy groups or nations — each 
working out its own form of government and its own social and eco- 
nomic system — the success or failure of which fixes the individual des- 
tiny of each nation. There is among them, with their diverse and 
conflicting interests, but one nation that is founded from its origin on 
the rock-bed of Democracy and which stands to-day, and always has stood, 
for world brotherhood — ^pledged to the principle that "government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

It is in the new light of this high standard of "America for Human- 
ity" that we open the pages of this narrative of the American people with 
a brief exposition of Our Country — its magnitude, its ideals, its history 
and government, with an inspiring vision of its tremendous possibilities. 
Its true power, its real purpose, and unmistakable destiny loom upon the 
horizon of the nations as the greatest discovery of the human race in its 
entire annals. 

It is freely predicted — not only in the United States but by the most 
far-sighted men in Europe — that within the present century America will 
economically, morally and spiritually instill a new spirit into the world 
that will exert a stronger power to an infinitely greater degree than that 
by which Greece intellectually dominated the mind of the race, or the 
Roman Empire ever legally swayed the conduct of men, or by which 
the British Empire commercially stamped its fiat on the world's trade. 
Within that brief time, to come within the actual experience of many of 
the people now living, America will become not only the greatest and 
most powerful nation ever conceived and brought forth on this earth by 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

sheer moral and economic pressure, but it will give the marching order to 
the world — and that marching word will be "humanity." War or peace 
for the world will be held eventually in the hollow of America's giant hand. 

What a monumental prophecy to confront the reader in the outset 
in these pages! Is there any foundation for it*? Or is it nothing more 
than the revival of the outbursts of pride that were common in 1800, 
1830, and 1850 and later? Its basis is facts — real and tangible, as 
we shall see in this survey of the achievements of the American people. 
Every man with an understanding of history cannot help but see what is 
to be. What is America for? Why was this greatest continent in the 
temperate zone flung up from the floor of the ocean, far from Europe 
with its multitude of races and tongues, and far from Asia with its color 
and interminable gulf of races'? Spread a map before you, turn these 
pages, and look at our home. Hear the thunder of the surf from the 
earth's two great seas on our shores. Look at the men mingling — white 
faces, yellow faces, red faces — ^brown faces, black faces — every son of 
the earth. Listen to their speech; store in your memory its melody; fill 
your soul with its inspiration. 

The American Continent was created for the sole, supreme purpose 
of making a definite, permanent beginning of the uniting of representa- 
tives of all the human races on this earth into one nation. It was set 
apart from the other continents to protect this work from invasion and 
interruption. It was abundantly furnished with every gift of nature to 
carry out this supreme purpose. The Indians came here savage; the 
world was not ready for the beginning of work. The Norsemen came here 
900 years ago to leave only a tradition; the world was still unready. But 
with the close of the dark ages in Europe, some four hundred years ago, 
the clock of destiny struck the beginning hour for the uniting of all the 
races. Then there were guided to this continent the representatives of the 
foremost race of men at that time. There was no accident in it — it was 
nothing less than the greatest movement in the historical procession of 
evolution. 

The discovery, settlement and development of America is the greatest 
thought ever evolved by the human mind, for it is nothing but the mind 
of man opening for itself a new world of aspiration, imagination, and 
achievement. It came at one of the darkest, if not the darkest hour in the 
annals of the race. The kings of Europe were forging new shackles for 
the people; there was intense restlessness; a barbarism more terrible than 
that of Attila or Ghengis Khan seemed to threaten Western Europe. 
Had the New World then not flecked the horizon of men's hopes, the 
civilization of Europe would in all probability have been irretrievably 



AMERICA— AND THE AMERICANS 

lost. John Fiske says it saved the race from a cataclysm, for it came to it 
as good news comes to a man on the point of committing suicide. 

1/ The American Continent is, therefore, the continent of "hope" for all 
tne peoples of the earth. A land, for the work such as the American 
continent is designed for, must not only be difficult for any single race to 
reach and conquer, but it must possess an unparalleled magnitude and 
opulence to house and accommodate countless numbers of all the races. 
Such a land must not only be able to protect itself from all enemies to 
the principles which it proclaims to the world, but by the sheer magnitude 
of its size, numbers and material success it must strive to impress its 
moral example upon the world. No small country could assume this 
responsibility. No country surrounded by numerous competitive nations 
could set up this work. No place in Europe or Asia could shelter the 
operations of such a gigantic task. England, by virtue of its island loca- 
tion, has served as a stage in this evolution. Remarkable is the fact that 
to-day the races of no one continent flourish to any high degree on 
the other continents, except in America. Nowhere has the negro ever 
been able to live even as a slave outside of Africa, except in America. 
Every effort to acclimate the black man in Europe has failed. Europe 
knows neither Chinese nor Japanese as they live in America. These races 
do not prosper in Australia or New Zealand as they do in the United 
States. And everywhere outside of Europe have the European races 
tended to deteriorate, except in America where they have markedly im- 
proved on the old stock. 

The uniting of the races into one nation means first of all liberty and 
peace. The whole history of the world cruelly demonstrates that the 
races cannot be united by the sword and political servitude. To cut down 
one race or nation is to raise up half a dozen new and stronger enemies. 
No man who left Europe in the i6th, 17th and 18th centuries for America 
had a thought that he was coming to a land where his descendants would 
ultimately merge into the one new race with descendants of men he neither 
knew nor liked. His only idea was liberty and peace, and for three 
centuries America has grown on this idea; out of it has come confidence, 
tolerance, sympathy, freedom. Everything has gone into this melting pot. 

We are at last beginning to see the whole world (and the whole 
world is beginning to see us) through the eyes of Patrick Henry and 
Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. We hear the note of human- 
ity sounding high and clear above the thunder of World War. That 
note of humanity is a world-note, a union-race note, a one-race note, the 
note of the cross. When Lincoln put his Emancipation Proclamation on 
the wires, he sent that same note down into every mansion and cabin of 

4.5 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

the South. When America sent it as a world warning to Europe in 
1915, it sounded like the small voice of conscience in the heavens. But it 
penetrated through the purlieus of White Chapel and Cuxhaven ; it entered 
the lacquered doors of the Wilhelm Strasse and Shonbrunn Palace. 

Look for a moment at this continent through the eyes of Professor 
Shaler, the eminent geologist. 1 This great scientist traversed on foot every 
continent on the globe, studying not only its earth formation, its minerals, 
its soil, its sunshine, its rainfall and climate, but its human habitations. 
Pie says that the part of the American Continent occupied by the United 
States and Canada is incomparably superior for the habitation of the 
human race to any like area elsewhere. When we speak of the magnitude 
of the American Continent, figures swell and grow like mighty rivers. 
Men now habitually think in millions and billions. A big thing is a 
commonplace thing unless it is the biggest thing of its kind in the world, 
for in this country we dearly love the colossal — it appeals to the American 
imagination. 

Such leading facts of physical magnitude, power and superiority as 
relate to the continent as a whole, have, according to Lord Bryce in the 
new 'edition of his "American Commonwealth," tended to make the Amer- 
ican multitude quantitative rather than qualitative in their ideas of their 
country. We would reply that in America magnitude in ideals backed 
by magnitude in natural resources is the true American claim. President 
Wilson recently said in a speech that it took a great people to conquer a 
great continent and has written the following words on this subject: "It 
has been pronounced grotesque that mere bigness and wealth should be 
put forward as the most prominent grounds for the boast of greatness. 
The obvious fact is that for the creation of the nation, the conquest of her 
territory from nature was necessary; and this task which is hardly com- 
pleted has been idealized in the popular mind." 

America never could fulfill its destiny without not only retaining 
this sense of magnitude, but recreating it as the mould for making its 
impression on the world in terms for realizing its own power and per- 
forming its great duty to the world. We shall in later chapters discuss 
American invention, science, education, arts, and the intellectual and 
spiritual forces that constitute true greatness, but let us first measure our 
physical proportions and physical power. 

Our country is continental in its magnitude. It is the only land 
under one flag, occupying an area of more than three million square miles, 
wholly within the temperate zone and washed by the world's two great 
seas. No other country of the same area within the temperate zone pos- 
sesses so much arable and habitable land as the United States. Russia 

4G 




MONEY ^^J^^^^I;l^^^^^^^niA,-SV.n street, New York, showing the Stock Excl^ange 
t,au i3cinkm„ House— This thoroughfare ranks among the tliree most important 
imancial centers in the world, 




GIAKT SKYSCRAl'ERS OF WESTEKX HEMIsrilKKE — Brilliant niglit scene in New Yorlc sbowinf 

the light iu ^letropolitan Tower, overlddking Madison Square — This structure is 5U 

stories high or 70U tVet, three inches, 



AMERICA— AND THE AMERICANS 

has more land in the temperate zone, but far less that is fertile, productive 
and habitable to the degree of our American land. More of the earth's 
population can develop itself here, can find raiment and shelter and take 
root and flower and fruit into a surpassing civilization. There are, as we 
have observed, according to a German statistician, about 2,000,000,000 
human beings on this planet. America, and only America among the 
nations, and even among the continents, has the capacity to feed and house 
every family of this vast humanity and to give each one of them a far 
more comfortable home than the great majority of them now have, accord- 
ing to the opinion of more than one economic authority. , 

If America can feed and house the world let us for a moment suppose 
that the whole human race were now here. Try first to conceive in the 
mind what is the size of the human race gathered in one city where the 
people live as close to one another as they do in New York. This number 
of people would make 320 New Yorks, and 320 New Yorks would cover 
only that small part of the country from New York City to within thirty 
miles of Buffalo. The present population of the United States, if it were 
possible to live in one city, would make a city twenty times the size of 
New York. But with this population scattered over this vast country 
there are only 33 persons on the square mile. If the world and all its 
kin lived here there would be 533 persons to the square mile and that would 
mean every mile, including Pike's Peak and the Grand Canons and the 
Great Desert. But England has almost as many people to the square mile 
as that ; Belgium has more. Yet we are told that so rich and inexhaustible 
is America in the gifts of nature that all these people could live here in 
the present state of science far better than the people of China or Indi^^ 
live to-day.NJ 

This gives us an idea of the inexhaustible power of nature in the 
United States. Germany occupies a large area on the map of Europe; it 
has 67,000,000 population, 208,780 square miles, and is the third richest 
country on the globe. We could put at least 14/4 Germanys in the area 
of the United States. But we have one State — Texas — where Germany 
itself could be laid down and Texas would remain uncovered. Moreover, 
Texas could be made to produce more from its soil than does Germany. 
You can very easily place 14% Frances in the United States. France has 
an area of 207,054 and 39,000,000 population. Fifty-two Englands can 
be put down on the map of the United States. If England were placed 
on the State of New York only a little of it would lap over upon the 
State of Pennsylvania. England could be put down in California 2% 
times; in Texas 4%; in New Mexico 2/4i; in Arizona nearly twice; in 
Nevada 1/4 times. </' 

49 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

Nowhere on this planet in an equal area is there such an equal distri- 
bution of sunshine and rainfall. The mean annual rainfall of twenty-nine 
inches is so extensive that every square mile of the great Southwestern Des- 
ert can be abundantly irrigated without depleting the water supply else- 
where. With all the violent changes of climate on the North Atlantic sea- 
board and around the Lakes, we have a climate ranging between 40 and 70 
degrees Fahrenheit. The European climate, including Russia, ranges from 
70 to 30. Nowhere over so vast a territory is there so little fog as in 
America. 

We have seen the possible capacity of the United States and the 
magnitude of its area — now let us assay our natural wealth. We have 
another sort of magnificence of magnitude to which we claim distinction. 
It is in what we have wrought out of this country since we came into 
possession of it. The national wealth of a country with its periodic growth 
and present sum, is the most concrete, tangible expression of the nation's 
power in the world. It represents most nearly the moral, mental and 
physical energy of a whole people that can be expressed in physical terms. 
If it is hoarded and stagnant wealth the energies of the nation may be 
dying with its wealth in its coffers. If it is dishonest, stolen wealth it may 
destroy the nation possessing it. The wealth of the United States is 
anything but stagnant or hoarded, and it is probably the most honestly 
accumulated wealth in the world. Forty years ago, Carlyle said the 
American people boasted of doubling their population every twenty years 
— "doubling their dollar chasers." John Fiske retorted: "The Euro- 
peans double their population now and then and just as often double their 
scalp chasers." 

The United States is by far the richest country on this globe in 
national wealth. It is almost as rich as both England and Germany added 
together and at its present rate of progress it will surpass them both within 
five years. Its national wealth was estimated in 1915 at the enormous 
figures of $150,000,000,000. 

How much was the Roman Empire worths Bear in mind that when 
the Roman Empire was at its height of power, the whole known world 
occupied a place in the world of its day comparable only to the whole 
planet of the present. Some one has estimated from what historic data 
that is available that the wealth of Rome in the days of Julius Caesar 
50 B. c. could not have exceeded $20,000,000,000 in our money. The 
American people produced more wealth last year than the whole world 
was worth 2,000 years ago, when it stood at its supreme height and power 
in ancient history. It is hard to clutch cold black figures in the mind, but 
try to realize what is undoubtedly a fact that the State of New York 

50 



AMERICA— AND THE AMERICANS 

is giving to the world more dynamic energy and power than the whole 
Roman Empire ever generated. New York City alone is doing more 
work to-day than the whole world did in the days of Augustus Csesar. 

But now let us make some comparisons of the wealth of the United 
States with the other richest nations in the world. We find in the last 
statistical statement of 1910, these twelve nations ranked as fol- 
lows: — United States $120,000,000,000; Great Britain and Ireland $68,- 
000,000,000; France $45,000,000,000; Germany $43,000,000,000; 
Belgium $7,000,000,000; Spain $5,000,000,000; Netherlands $5,000,- 
000,000; Portugal $2,000,000,000; Switzerland $2,400,000,000. At 
the end of 1914 they stood as follows: — United States $150,000,000,000; 
Great Britain $85,000,000,000; Germany $80,000,000,000; France 
$50,000,000,000; Russia $40,000,000,000; Austria-Hungary $25,- 
000,000,000; Italy $20,000,000,000; Belgium $9,000,000,000; Spain 
$5,400,000,000; Netherlands $5,000,000,000; Switzerland, $4,000,000,- 
000; Portugal $2,500,000,000. In the next five years there was an enor- 
mous increase. The German Empire rose to $80,000,000,000 and the 
others made large advance while the United States reached $150,000,- 
000,000. 

Nothing can more truly reveal the overwhelmingly increasing power 
of America among the nations. The Russian Empire is the greatest land 
empire in the world, but America has produced enough wealth since 1907 
to buy the Czar's entire dominions under the hammer. Our railroads are 
worth more now than the entire kingdom of Italy. Our harvest this year 
would more than buy the whole of Spain or the Netherlands. The prod- 
ucts of our mines would more than purchase Portugal. The values that 
we have added to our farming lands and city lots within the last fifteen 
months would buy the little mountain republic of Switzerland. Our 
harvests this year, and the values that we have added to our national 
domain by buildings within the last twelve months, and other real estate 
improvements, are worth more to-day than this whole republic was worth 
in 1850; its wealth then did not exceed the modest sum of $7,000,000,- 
000. England then had nearly three times our wealth, and France was 
not far behind England. 

What does $150,000,000,000 mean to the imagination? With this 
sum of money the United States could buy nearly twenty cities, each as 
wealthy as New York. It could pay for Germany and France, or France 
and Russia, . with enough left over to purchase Spain and Portugal. It 
could buy thirty Spains, thirty Hollands, three Frances and nearly four 
Russias. It could buy out all the railroads of the world and then leave 
enough to pay for England. If this money could be put on interest one 

51 



AMERICA— THE LAND WE LOVE 

year at six per cent the interest would more than pay the public debt of the 
United States three times. This interest could build a fleet of 500 super- 
dreadnoughts. One-sixth of this interest could build a fleet stronger than 
all the navies of the world to-day. This interest for two years could build 
and equip all the railroads in the United States, and all the roads of the 
world in four and a half years. If this national wealth were equally 
divided among the people each person would have about $1,500. 

We Americans enter our claims to distinction and stand before the 
judgment of the World on the record of our achievements which will be 
presented in the following chapters in this volume. We shall show that 
we have the continent; we have the natural resources; we have the popu- 
lation; we have the form of government; we have the ideals, indomitable 
will, perseverance, resolution — all the elements essential to the building 
of a great nation. We claim, moreover, that in the 140 years of our 
national life we have made greater progress toward this achievement and 
have contributed more liberally to civilization than has any other nation in 
so brief a period within the records of mankind. 

Human progress is an admixture of all the powers mentioned, plus 
spiritual force and economic determinism. As the philosopher said: 
"All growth that is not toward God is growing to decay." Nations are 
but groups of men and are subject to the same laws of physical, moral, and 
intellectual development. The whole spirit of human progress is em- 
bodied in the American people — possibly more so than in any other people 
on the earth. We have the determination, industry, inventive genius and 
decision to become great, and we have the inventive genius to translate 
these qualities into action — stupendous action. 

We entered the arena of the world's activities less than a century 
and a half ago and we speeded up human progress; we broke the chains 
that stayed it; we gave it momentum; we emancipated human progress and 
inspired the world with new ideals, kindling new hopes in the hearts of 
mankind, and opening up new and larger opportunities for the growth of 
the human race. 

We have set up on the Western Hemisphere a new model for hu- 
manity. We realize that nations with similar ideals have passed their 
brief existence and gone to decay — such as the democracy of Greece and 
the republic of Rome. But we can only say with the Bishop Berkeley 
"On the prospect of planting arts and learning in America" : 

"Westward the course of empire takes its way, 
The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day; 
Time's noblest offspring is the last !" 

52 




GREAT INDUSTiilAL I KNTEU OF MIDDLE WEST — The commercial growth of Chicago is 

one of the miracles of the development of the West — It Is one of the chain of cities 

that have made the Great Lakes the most active inland sea in the world. 




SEtdMi LAKCKST __1'1TY IN UNITED STATES —Chicago li 
'lichigan — 
the West 



on the southwestern shore of 



Lake Michigan — This city has grown to enormous magnitude with the development of 
-It was settled about 177 < — Fjrst migration hegaii about l.s;_!(i, 




LARGEST CITY ON WESTERN COAST OF AMERICA — San Francisco ranks ninth in popula- 
tion; se^'entli seaport in commercial importance— It was visited by Europeans in 17<)!>, 
incorporatetl in IS.iO — It is an active force in the development of the nation. 




GOLDEN GATE TO THE ORIENT — The Bay of San Francisco forms a masniticent harbor 

about ninetv miles long and from five to fl'fteen miles wide — 'Regular lines of steamships 

connect witb all the ports od the Taciiic Coast and countries of the far Kast, 



PART I CHAPTER II 

/ 

NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE 
AMERICAN PEOPLE 



"A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; 
An hour may lay it in the dust." 

— Byron. 
"Let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures 
which, viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity and sully 
the glory you have hitherto maintained. . . . You will, by the dignity of your 
conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious 
example you have exhibited to mankind: 'Had this day been wanting, the 
world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is 
capable of attaining.' " — Washington, 



THE glamour of romance casts its golden light over the pageantry 
of American progress ; a romance ennobled by the stern duty of 
a purposeful people ; a people inspired in a Great Cause ; a cause 
as heroic and courageous as that of the old Crusaders — the plant- 
ing of the standard of triumphant democracy before the whole world. It 
is frequently charged that the Americans have no background — that we are 
a "colorless" people, with no tales of adventure, no deeds of daring to re- 
late, no heroic episodes in our life story. This common belief is indeed a 
legend in itself, for the progress of the American people is one continuous 
epic filled with dramatic power and tense in its human emotions, with 
perhaps the most picturesque characters that have ever trod the highways of 
human existence. It is a romance more heroic than that of ancient Greece, 
sturdier than that of the old Romans, more chivalrous than the days of 
knighthood, because it is the romance of nation building and there is no 
more heroic adventure in the episodes of mankind. 

America is the borderland of chivalry, but it is the chivalry of a 
courageous, lion-hearted people, conquering a continent, subduing wild 
beast and savage, fighting its way through dense forests, through ravines and 
mountain gorges, over snow-clad peaks, fording mighty rivers — and sub- 
jecting them all to the will and utility of man. It is quite true that in 
America there is no glitter of hauberk, helm, and lance, and ladies did not 
ride with hawk on wrist, but the trumpet sounds and the banner waves, 
while mighty men blaze their way across a hemisphere, bridging rivers and 
canyons, harnessing the torrents and floods, conquering the rock barriers 
of mountains, causing great cities to rise from the vast forests, and com- 

55 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

manding the wilderness to blossom and the earth to disgorge its hidden 
riches. 

The Great Adventure — Days of American Knighthood 

LET us pass in procession before us the four hundred years of pag- 
eantry, in which we look upon the men and the events that have 
laid the foundation of the American nation. The march of Amer- 
ican civilization begins with what we might call the Great Adventure — the 
period of Discovery from the year looo to the first permanent settlement 
in the New World. It begins with the daring sea tales of the Vikings and 
the sea rovers, bold Spanish explorers, gallant English navigators, debonair 
French adventurers, monks, courtiers, knights — a wonderful procession of 
strong characters that appeal strongly to the imagination. Here we meet 
the hardy old Norsemen, whose adventures brought them along these 
shores in the days of the sea rovers, whom the storms tossed from the oceans 
on this side of the earth. 

These were the days when gentlemen of adventure and knights of 
fortune were roving the unknown seas to find new lands of fabulous riches. 
It was a partnership between kings, bankers, and adventurers which began 
this period of world discovery; it was a business speculation in which the 
profits were distributed among the several interests. They started forth 
not only to stake out the earth and claim dominion over it, but to own and 
control the sea-routes — to charter and lease the oceans — to claim absolute 
monopoly over the universe, or as much of it as they might set foot and 
plant their standards upon. It is interesting to note that these early expe- 
ditions were not for the purposes of scientific discovery or geographical 
exploration but wholly for trade and empire — they were purely specula- 
tions for profit, a game played for big stakes by the Old World monarchs 
and financiers. It is interesting further to note that out of this business 
speculation should develop not only the world's greatest democracy — the 
greatest business nation in the world, but a nation that has broken down 
all the despotic privileges of the Old World and stands for complete free- 
dom of the seas and absolute justice and equality on land. 

There looms before us in this period of adventure the tall figure of a 
Genoese — a man with an idea, with a business proposition. He is willing 
to promote a venture for the purpose of laying claim to a new route to the 
Far East by the way of the western seas if he can secure sufficient financial 
backing. This man was Christopher Columbus — and the result of his 
achievement was the discovery of America. Columbus, in command of an 
expedition of three ships sent out by the King of Spain, sailed in August, 
1492, on his voyage to reach Asia by sailing westward on the Sea of 

5Q 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Darkness (the Atlantic). It is a great sea story — with its mutinies, chains, 
storms, hunger, and desperation — above which looms the determined coun- 
tenance of Columbus. After leaving the Canary Islands, the first land 
that he sighted was one of the Bahamas — on October 12, 1492 — and, 
though he believed that he had reached Asia (a belief which he carried to 
his death), he was the discoverer of a New World. It is interesting to 
recall that in this same year occurred one of the most momentous events in 
European history — the capture of Granada by the armies of the heroic 
queen — Isabella of Castile — who pawned her jewels in order to assist 
Columbus in his great enterprise, and the definite expulsion from the 
Iberian Peninsula of the Moors, who had occupied it for 700 years. 

Columbus made three or more voyages to the New World, which he 
called the Indies, from which fact the natives of these continents have 
ever since been known as Indians. The tragic end of Columbus, his over- 
throw by his political enemies, his trial, imprisonment, and death are great 
studies in human psychology — plots more intense in their action than 
dramatists have ever been able to conceive from the imagination. 

It was a picturesque group of adventurers that crossed the seas in the 
wake of Columbus — hardy old navigators from Spain and Portugal fol- 
lowed his lead and quickly found the mainland. The first of these was 
Americus Vespucius, an Italian in the employ of Portugal — and from him 
the land received its name, when a German geographer issued a little book 
in 1507 about the new discoveries, and, because Americus Vespucius was the 
first European to sight the mainland, named it in his honor — America. 

Then came Balboa, a Spaniard, who crossed the Isthmus of Panama 
in 1513, fighting fever, beasts, and Indians, traversing swamps and moun- 
tains under the tropical heat — and discovered what he called the South Sea 
— the Pacific. Soon we see Ponce de Leon, another Spaniard, in search of 
a fountain of perpetual youth, who first came upon Florida (1513) ; and 
his countryman, Pineda, exploring the shores of the Gulf of Mexico 

(1519). 

At this time the great cataclysm of the Reformation burst over Europe. 
But this movement little affected the Iberian powers, bent on adventure and 
conquest, led on by the two motives of avarice and zeal — and the zeal was 
ever for the ancient religion. 

It was not until an expedition commanded by Magellan, a Portuguese, 
circumnavigated the earth in 1519, that it was definitely known that Colum- 
bus stumbled upon a new continent which blocked sailing directly to the 
Orient, instead of having reached the Orient itself. On came the Span- 
iards, exploring the interiors of these new lands, and in 1565 founded the 
settlement of St. Augustine in Florida — the first settlement of Europeans 

57 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

in what is now the United States. Thus we owe to Spain the beginning of 
civilization on the Western Hemisphere. 

Tales of incalculable wealth — gold, fur, hides, precious woods and 
metals — soon began to be told in the inns of England where the navigators 
gathered. The English adventurers had been liberally financed by the 
Government and the bankers in their East Indian ventures, which were 
beginning to pay large profits in spices and silks. Their attention now 
turned to the new America. An English expedition under the command 
of John and Sebastian Cabot, Italians, explored what is now our Atlantic 
seaboard (1497) ; but it was nearly a century before other English expedi- 
tions came to the New World. Frobisher, seeking a passage through the 
continent to Asia, found the bay which bears his name (1576), and Drake, 
after rounding the Horn, explored the coast of Oregon and stopped for a 
time in what is now the Bay of San Francisco (1579)- Sir Walter 
Raleigh, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, attempted to make a settlement 
at Roanoke Island in 1585, but it was a failure. The returning settlers 
took back with them tobacco and potatoes — novelties for Europe — and the 
Western Hemisphere began to be spoken of as a land of opportunity for 
permanent colonization. 

Meanwhile, in the Old World, Shakespeare was inditing his immortal 
works, Spenser was extolling the charms of the "Faerie Queenes." It was 
the Elizabethan Age of English literature — only comparable in the world's 
history to that of Pericles or Augustus. 

The first permanent settlement of the Anglo-Saxon race in what is 
now the United States was that at Jamestown, Virginia, founded in 1607. 
There were 4,000 colonists in the province within thirteen years. When it 
was ordered that the inhabitants of the eleven boroughs in which they lived 
should send representatives to a legislature to be called the House of Bur- 
gesses, the first representative body in America came into existence (idig) ; 
and in the same year a Dutch ship arrived and sold twenty negro slaves 
brought from Africa, thus establishing another institution — slavery. 

It is at this time that we receive on the American shores the ship-load 
of regicides, who, fleeing from the theocracy of the Old World, were to 
plant the first seed of democracy on the Western Hemisphere — a sect called 
Puritans because they insisted on certain "purfying" reforms for both the 
Church and State, These liberals little realized that their secession from 
the established orthodox forms in civil and religious government — their 
heresy was to mark the birth of a new freedom, religious, intellectual, so- 
cial, and economic. Leaving England — practically ostracized and exiled 
— they went to Holland and finally came to the rock-bound coast of what 
is now New England. They set up a colony at Plymouth in the present 

58 




AMERICAN IIISTUUY IN EUROPEAN ART-This ancient uaintinK in Aladri.l shows Columbus 

delivering the Royal Order for the Caravels to start on his journey from Palos 

bpain, which resulted in the discovery of America, in H912, 



X, 












^9 









NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

State of Massachusetts in 1620, after sailing thence in the Mayflower. 
New colonists, fleets of white-sailed ships, soon headed toward America 
from England, and the Pilgrim foundations were laid. 

Rotna7ice of Colonial Days — Awakening of the Wilderness 

THE romance of colonial days now begins to lighten the dark recesses 
of the virgin wilderness. It is a period of colonization from 1607 
to 1763 — 156 years. This second period is replete with pic- 
turesque glimpses of human life. It is filled with gallant deeds, unique 
costumes, and rich humor; Indians, quaint Dutchmen, somber Puritans, 
brave Cavaliers, pious Quakers, Jesuit priests, lords and ladies — all moving 
through quaint villages and thrilling Indian Wars — scalping, witchcraft, 
pillories, burning at the stake, villages in flames, heroic women, fleeing chil- 
dren — an almost illimitable field for historical drama. 

But we should here warn ourselves against a common error — we must 
not make the mistake so often made by historians. The permanent foun- 
dations of the American nation were not all laid by the English-speaking 
peoples. This nation is built upon the courage, self-sacrifice, labor, and 
lives of many races — Spanish, English, Dutch, French, Swedish — each of 
which contributed in those early days very substantial and essential founda- 
tions upon which later the whole structure was to be built by all the na- 
tionalities of the earth — Irish, Scotch, German, Italian, Scandinavian, Slav 
— with the sinew and blood of the whole Occident and the Orient welded 
into one race — the American people. 

The Dutch — a trading people who were powerful in the world's com- 
merce — founded the greatest metropolis on the Western Hemisphere. 
Henry Hudson, an Englishman in their employ, discovered Hudson Bay, 
and also a river, which now bears his name, in 1609. Here, at the mouth 
of the river, the Dutch established a trading post on Manhattan Island. 
This grew into a colony known as New Amsterdam. Pushing north, they 
established other colonies in the Hudson Valley, until they were firmly im- 
bedding in American soil the characteristics that have been large factors in 
our commercial growth. 

The increase in colonization by the various nationalities cannot be 
studied here in detail. It is sufficient to say that by 1650 the Atlantic sea- 
board was held by the Europeans as follows: the Spaniards held and 
colonized the inland and coast along the Gulf of Mexico and along the 
Atlantic, about as far north as the northern boundary of Florida. North 
of that lay what the English called their Virginia Colony, reaching nearly 
to the headwaters of Chesapeake Bay. Then came, near the present site 
of Wilmington, Delaware, a settlement of Swedes (for that people, too, set 

61 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

up colonies here), and north of them were the Dutch colonies, embracing 
what is now part of New York State and part of New Jersey. North 
of these there was another English territory, embracing what is now called, 
and what was then named. New England. 

The French began their explorations and settlement in America later 
than the other nationalities, but performed the heroic task of penetrating 
the interior. By the time they started there was nothing on the seaboard 
for them to acquire except land in the north, around the mouth of the 
St. Lawrence River. Cartier explored the St. Lawrence Valley, however, 
as early as 1534, and in 1608 a party under the command of Champlain 
founded a colony at Quebec. The conquest of the interior was a mighty 
achievement. Marquette pushed inland till he came to the headwaters of 
the Mississippi and sailed down that river as far as the mouth of the 
Arkansas (1673). La Salle, after exploring Lake Erie, also went to the 
Mississippi and followed it to its mouth. He took possession of all terri- 
tory drained by that river in the name of the French king (1681). Their 
energies brought to the possession of the French, Canada, and Nova Scotia 
and Louisiana, thus hemming in the English colonies on the north and on 
the west of the Appalachian Mountains. At home in France, a galaxy of 
talent fostered by the "Great Monarch," Louis XIV, raised France to her 
zenith of literary glory. Pascal in his study, Moliere on the stage, Bossuet 
in the pulpit — such were the gigantic figures that have made the reign of 
the "Great Monarch" the most remarkable in French history. 

The time was sure to come — and soon to come — when the conflicting 
claimants of the American continent would meet face to face in a struggle 
of the survival of the fittest. America was now recognized as a land of 
vast resources and it was seen by far-sighted statesmen that its broad do- 
minion, its rapidly increasing population, and its natural resources would 
be important factors in determining the political future of the world. Suc- 
cessive wars in Europe throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
were to determine the possession of the territories held by the belligerent 
European nations in America. Battles were fought here as well as on the 
other side of the Atlantic which were balancing the future of America on 
the point of the sword. The diplomatists began to calculate the value of 
America in the great game of statescraft. By the treaty of Ryswick 
(1697) which ended the war of the Spanish Succession in Europe (known 
to the colonists as Queen Anne's War), France ceded to England, Fort 
Royal, in Nova Scotia, which had been captured by the English colonists ; 
and by the Treaty of Utrecht, at the close of 1713, the English received 
from the French all of Nova Scotia and right to the Hudson Bay region. 

England and Spain went to war in 1739, and the English colonists 

62 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

captured St. Augustine, Florida; the English possessions thereafter ex- 
tended southward into what had formerly been Spanish territory. Strug- 
gles between the Swedish and Dutch colonists ended with the disappear- 
ance of Swedish possessions; and in 1667 the Dutch traded their possessions 
in North America for the English possessions in Guiana, on the coast of 
South America. 

War between the French and English colonists in America was at 
last to come independently of the relations of the mother countries. The 
English colonists, by pushing west and north, came into open conflict with 
the French colonists. Though England and France were at peace at home, 
a war broke out between their colonies in America in 1754. This is known 
as the French and Indian War, because these two formed an alliance 
against the English settlers. In this conflict, George Washington had his 
first military experience, being in command of an English force which de- 
fended a fort on the present site of Pittsburgh. Warriors from England 
and France crossed the seas and crossed swords on the American continent. 
Those from England were under command of General Braddock, who, in 
attempting to capture Fort Duquesne, was defeated, because he would not 
take the advice of Washington. 

The mother countries were soon embroiled in European politics, and 
there broke out the Seven Years' War in 1756. By the Peace of Paris 
(1763), which brought that war to an end, the victories of England and 
her colonists won for her (so far as America was concerned) all of the 
French territory east of the Mississippi and all of Canada, which had been 
conquered by Wolfe against Montcalm. France ceded her possessions west 
of the Mississippi to Spain; and Spain, in turn, ceded Florida to England. 
France had lost all her possession in North America — the only traces which 
remain are the French-Canadians in Quebec and Montreal and the French- 
speaking Creoles in New Orleans. Possession of the then known regions 
in North America was left in the hands of only two nations, England and 
Spain, and, as the latter's territory consisted only of Mexico, it was to Eng- 
land that the whole of what was then known of North America belonged. 
Thus, it was decided and from this moment ordained that the English 
tongue should be the language of this great people in the northern part of 
the Western Hemisphere. 

The American Revolution — the Birth of the Republic 

WE now enter upon the third epoch in the conquest and civiliza- 
tion of the New World. This period (1763-1789) is one that 
vitally concerns every American. It is filled with the angry 
protest of the people against tyranny, wrathful denunciation of injustice, 

63 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

and declaration of independence. The call of the bugle is heard in the 
fields, the marching feet of determined men, the roar of the cannon rever- 
berates across the valleys. We look into the sad eyes of women ; we hear 
the weeping of children, and we catch the exultant cry of a new people, as 
a new flag unfurls before the breeze at the head of marching regiments, 
v/hile the shrill voice of the fife pierces the air and the drum beats — these 
are the men who fought the American Revolution — the minute men of 
1776, the Continental Army, the Light Horse Cavalry; the farmers and 
mechanics, the tradesmen and scholars — the American patriots who rose in 
defense of human rights and gave to the world the American nation. 

The cause of wars, as we shall see in the chapter on Great Wars, is 
fundamentally economic. The trouble came through England's desire to 
control the seas, command a great empire, and mold the policies of world 
trade. This was the natural right of monarchy, enforced by military 
power, and England demanded only that which she believed to be her 
legitimate heritage under the doctrine of the divine right of kings. But 
England failed in one thing — she failed to comprehend the evolutionary 
forces that were cumulating toward democracy; she failed to realize the 
vastness and the economic destiny of the American continent, and she failed 
to understand the spirit of the American people and their potential power. 
Thus, in endeavoring to stay the laws of evolution, she plunged into 
revolution, probably as all other nations would (and most nations have) 
under similar situations. 

There is no spectacle in human life or in the dramatic development 
of nations so tragic as that of war — human misunderstandings, fanned by 
a sense of injustice into anger, hatred, vengeance, and yet ennobling the 
spirit of man in inspiring him to a willingness to die for what he believes to 
be right; a sublime unselfishness — a complete forgetfulness of self — for 
the sake of what he believes to be the welfare of his country. The Amer- 
ican Revolution was a war for humanity; it was fought not alone for the 
American people but for the whole human race. And yet its origin was 
economic rather than altruistic. It began with a sense of injustice caused 
by a system of burdensome taxation — a revolt against the yoke of mon- 
archy, which came to its culmination in the birth of a new democracy. 

Money — that is the root of most evil and also the glory of most hu- 
man achievement — the dual force behind human progress. The recent 
wars had cost England much money, and, as the colonies had benefited by 
them to no small degree, she decided that they must bear some of that cost 
— such seemed reasonable to the monarchy. This was to be done by mak- 
ing them pay tribute to the navigation laws, which provided that all trade 
to or from the colonies with England or any other country must go in 

64 




COI.U:\ll'.rS CKC^SSINM! TIIK seas to A:MKr;iCA — IIls floot consisted of tlin-c sliips ; each 

had a crew of 00 men — Ilis sailors threatened to throw him overboard — IIu 

sighted land after 70 days of perilous adventure. 




LANDING OF COLUMBI'S IN AMERICA — ^A cannon sliot .innonnced the disrov<i., 
October 12, 1492 — He landed at San Salvador and throwing himself uimii 
bis knees, kissed the earth, returning thanks to God. 




CELEBRATION OF AMERICAN LIBERTY — This rare engraving shows the raising of the liberty pole dedi- 
cated to American independence in 1776 — The original was engraved by James C. McRae and 
exhibited during the centenary of independence at Exposition in 1§76. 




.IMIhE OF AMERICAN LIFE IN 1776— Here we witness the jubilation which swept the country prpccainij 
the American Revolution — The spirit here shown was given expression in the Declaration of 
independence — It is interesting to note the costumes and customs. 



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NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

English ships or ships owned by colonists, and diat manufactured goods 
leaving the colonies must go to an English port before being sent to a for- 
eign purchaser, or pay an export duty. The cost of the recent wars was 
also to be met by taxes on sugar and molasses brought into the colonies, and 
by a stamp tax by which every legal document executed in the colonies was 
to bear a stamp costing from six cents to fifty dollars, according to the im- 
portance of the document. The first two methods of raising money in the 
colonies were not new ; the new stamp tax was to go into effect on Novem- 
ber 1, 1765. 

The British statesmen were born rulers ; they believed they knew how 
to pacify the people. So they announced that the money raised by these 
means was to go toward paying for the defense of the colonies. But the 
American spirit was near eruption; it was struggling to break the chains. 
The colonists declared that the taxes were odious, both in the hardships 
which they imposed on the people here and in the fact that the people re- 
sented the right of the English Parliament to tax them. They took up the 
cry that "taxation without representation is tyranny" and made resistance 
against such taxation. But this principle in equity was not understood 
by the English Parliament, for that body was taxing Englishmen who were 
by no means properly represented in it. 

The colonists defied the monarchy. They refused to use the hated 
stamps. So united were they in their opposition to the tax that it was re- 
pealed in 1766. But England considered it necessary to introduce severe 
measures to maintain the authority of the monarchy. It passed the Town- 
send Acts, which required the people of New York to quarter British troops 
or to give up their legislature, provided for strict enforcement of trade laws 
at Boston, and for taxes on certain goods, tea included. The breach 
widened — the crisis was near. Colonial assemblies were dissolved for of- 
fending the king. Troops from England began to arrive in 1770. The 
colonists refused to quarter them. In Boston the matter became so serious 
that in the same year a riot followed. The troops fired on a crowd — this 
was the "Boston Massacre." 

British America was aroused. England now found it necessary to 
recede from her position. She took the tax off all goods coming into the 
colonies, with the exception of tea. But it was too late; democracy was on 
its virgin bed — soon to be born in blood. The people here were determined 
to tolerate no tax imposed by a parliament in which they had no repre- 
sentation and decided to evade the tax by importing no tea. At Boston the 
populace attempted to send cargoes of tea back to England. The authori- 
ties by prohibiting it precipitated the raid known as the "Boston Tea 
Party." Several young men, dressed as Indians, dumped the cargoes of tea 

69 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

into Boston Harbor. Parliament struck back in retaliation and passed five 
acts : closing the port of Boston ; providing for the trials of offending col- 
onists in England; giving Massachusetts a military governor; forcing the 
people to quarter troops; and enlarging the province of Quebec so that it 
encroached on territory claimed by Massachusetts. 

The alarmed colonies organized for concerted action. The first Con- 
tinental Congress assembled on September 5, 1774. I^ was a gathering of 
determined men — representatives from all the colonies, excepting Georgia. 
It met at Philadelphia with much fervid oratory and passed addresses to 
the colonists, to the Canadians, to the people in England, and to the king. 
It drew up a Declaration of Rights, asserting these rights to be those of 
life, liberty, and property, the right to tax themselves, to peaceable assem- 
bly, to address petitions to the king, and to enjoy the rights of Englishmen 
and those which were provided for in the colonial charters. It declared, 
further, that these rights had been violated by the English authorities. 
Before adjourning it agreed to meet again in May, 1775. 

We now look up the most memorable event in the history of Amer- 
ica. It is July 4th, 1776 — and there has never been a 4th of July since 
that the American people have not celebrated this event. It marked the 
birth of the greatest republic the human race has ever known. For months 
the Continental Congress had been in session at Philadelphia and every 
day of that time it had been a challenge to British monarchy. The colonies 
were actually in a state of revolt. Congress was working with all of its 
might to arm the country. The very words and phrases that have been 
immortalized by the Declaration of Independence had long been heard on 
every lip from Maine to Georgia. 

Congress met in the Spring of 1776. It was evident that no peti- 
tion would again be addressed to His Majesty's Government. Public 
opinion in the colonies was divided on the subject of separation. It now 
required spirits of the most heroic mold to set up an independent govern- 
ment in the face of the persistent claim of the people that they were not 
rebels in demanding their rights. But so numerous and determined had 
grown the separatists that in May they compelled the Congress to pass a 
resolution calling upon the colonies to form independent governments. 

This wave of patriotism had not subsided when Richard Henry Lee, 
the spokesman of the Virginia delegation, arose in the Continental Con- 
gress on June 7th and said that he had received instructions from the Coun- 
cil of Virginia to move the following resolution: "That these United 
States are, and of right ought to be free and independent States ; that they 
are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; that all political 
connection between them and Great Britain is and ought to be totally dis- 

70 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

solved." John Adams was on his feet, seconding this resolution, before 
Lee could take his seat. 

The gauge of battle had been thrown down. The fifty-six immortal 
members of that Congress, in considering Lee's resolution, knew that they 
were precipitating a crisis. The Journal of the Congress is as silent as 
the grave on what passed after John Adams arose, except to note "that 
certain resolutions were moved and seconded and the consideration of 
them was deferred till to-morrow morning and the members were enjoined 
to attend promptly at lo o'clock." The delegates were seriously divided; 
but in order to lose no time a committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, 
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston, 
was appointed to prepare a Declaration. 

Jefferson was selected to write the Declaration. In a little room 
on the corner of Market and Seventh Streets, he toiled over the document, 
writing and rewriting it. For several days the Congress had the Declara- 
tion under consideration. It was known that the separatists lacked only 
one vote of having a certain majority. One of the eloquent members was 
making a speech in favor of adopting the Declaration, drawing on nu- 
merous letters and documents from each of the States to prove that public 
opinion favored the separation. Coming to North Carolina, he gathered 
up an armful of letters and resolutions and read them with wonderful 
dramatic effect. Mr. Hewes, who had constantly voted against the 
Declaration, suddenly lifted his hand and almost shouted: "It is done, 
I will abide by it." 

A look of terror swept over the faces of the members who had per- 
sistently opposed the Declaration. In that tense moment of the drama, 
the Republic of the United States was bom. Something, however, more 
than a mere majority was needed to secure the safe passage of this mo- 
mentous bill of rights. The desired majority was finally obtained. Lee's 
resolution was adopted on July 2nd, 1776. This act separated the col- 
onies from the mother country. The formal declaration was adopted on 
July 4th. How many speeches were made on that first 4th of July 
in American history, what was said and how the vote was taken, have never 
been revealed. Only John Hancock, the President of Congress, and 
Charles Thompson, the Secretary, signed the document then. 

There was no crowd about Independence Hall on that day. The 
document was published in the Philadelphia Packet two days later, and 
on the 8th it was read from Independence Hall to a crowd in the Square. 
Liberty bell was not rung. The crowd did, however, tear down the king's 
coat of arms in the State House. On August 2nd all the members of the 
Congress present signed the Declaration. There it was that John Han- 

71 



1 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

cock warned the members: "We must all hang together"; and Franklin 
made his famous witty reply: "If not we shall all hang separately." 

The American Revolution marked the end of the British hopes for sub- 
duing the Colonies. Colonies they were no longer; by November, 1783, 
the last British force had sailed for home. Washington resigned his com- 
mission and returned to his estate at Mount Vernon. The treaty of peace 
was signed in 1783, and the boundaries of the United States were defined 
as a line running from the mouth of the St, Croix River to Maine, thence 
to the Lake of the Woods; west along a line running due west to the Mis- 
sissippi, down that river to 3 1 north latitude, eastward along that parallel 
to the Apalachicola River, and by the present northern boundary of Florida 
to the Atlantic. It was an area of 827,844 square miles inhabited by three 
and a quarter million souls — a mighty nucleus for a new nation and a new 
nationality. 

Building of a Great Nation — and Its Development 

"MIE scenes now change from Spartan valor on the battlefields to 
Solonistic statesmanship in the halls of liberty. We witness the 
tremendous spectacle of the building of a nation and pass through 
the first period of National Development — from 1789 to 1861 — 72 years. 
This period brings us face to face with the great figures that laid the foun- 
dations of the Republic. Here we see the inaugural procession of Wash- 
ington — his inauguration, his inaugural ball. We meet Hamilton, Ad- 
ams, Jefferson — and the statesmen of the new democracy. We visit the 
old colonial houses. There is the War of 1812, the War with Mexico. 
This is interspersed with the development of invention — the steamship, 
railroad; territorial acquisition, the Louisiana Purchase, the beginning of 
the West, the gold seekers, the whole wonderful panorama of the awaken- 
ing of a giant in civilization. 

Let us begin to view the panorama in the days immediately following 
the triumph of the Revolution. While the troops of the colonies had been 
fighting in the field their statesmen were preparing for a union of their 
governments. An agreement known as the "Articles of Confederation" 
had been drawn up by the Continental Congress in 1777. It was a heroic 
task to attempt to unite all the conflicting interests, all the diverse ideas, 
all the various interpretations of liberty, under one instrument. Conflicts 
about the lands claimed by the various colonies kept some of them from 
ratifying these articles until 1781; and then they were of little practical 
value as governmental machinery because they gave Congress such limited 
powers. Most serious was the prohibiting of taxation at the hands of that 
body. The various interests hesitated to contribute their individual priv- 

72 




BEGINNING OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN AMERICA— This engraving shows the relit 
regicides as they fled from the Old World to take ship for the New World 
to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. 




FIRST LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS IN AMERICA-The Mayflower, after a stornn 
ot Od days; anchored off Cape Cod. with 102 passengers— Thev landed at " 
rlymouth Rock to establish a colony in November, 1620, 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

ileges to the common consent of all — it was difficult to divest themselves. 
Autocracy still fought inwardly with democracy. 

The great crisis came on a May day in Independence Hall, in Phila- 
delphia. The representatives from all the colonies met in convention, and 
fought out in debate the issues involved, coming to a final agreement after 
months of discussion, in the epoch-making instrument known as "the Con- 
stitution of the United States" — the greatest creation of governmental ma- 
chinery ever devised by human minds. Its provisions will be found in 
another chapter. It here suffices to say that it was ratified by the ninth 
State on June 21, 1788, and on that date became operative. 

The first presidential election was held in 1788. This, too. Is de- 
scribed in the chapter on "Great American Campaigns." The people chose 
as the first President of the Republic, their war hero — Washington, and on 
the 30th of April, 1789, he took the oath of office on a spot still designated 
in Wall Street, New York, amid the shouts and cheers of the populace. 

The first work of the first administration was a gigantic task — that 
of putting into effect the machinery of government provided for by the 
Constitution. A tariff law was passed, that money might come to the na- 
tional treasury; the federal courts were established; the executive depart- 
ments were established, and their heads became the President's cabinet; and 
a national debt was contracted. 

The problem of financing the new nation fell upon Alexander Hamil- 
ton, first Secretary of the Treasury. To him the financial matters were en- 
trusted. A national debt of $1 1,700,000 was due to Holland, France and 
Spain, for aid during the Revolution ; a domestic debt of $42,000,000 ; and 
State debts amounted to about $21,000,000. For the redemption of these, 
Hamilton bonded the first two and assumed and funded the State debts. 
Congress then ordered stock bearing interest to be issued in exchange for the 
old debts. In 1790 the National Debt amounted to $75,000,000. The 
matter of funding the State debts was opposed by men from Virginia and 
Pennsylvania in Congress, and in order to get these members to agree to it, 
a compromise was made whereby Congress provided that for ten years the 
national capital should be Philadelphia, instead of New York, and that 
thereafter it should be in a new city on the Potomac. This resulted in the 
building of the city of Washington, where the National Government was 
established in 1800. 

The genius required to finance a nation is equally as great as that re- 
quired to win its battles — and especially a new nation in an experimental 
stage without credit. Moreover, it is a much larger problem to promote 
a republic than to finance a monarchy. Thus, the foundation arch to a 
democracy must have two pillars — industry with finance to maintain it — 

75 



AMERICA; THE LAND WE LOVE 

labor with capital to promote it — men and money as a medium for ex- 
changing their services. Neither can exist without the other under the 
present age of human development. 

How to finance the American nation was its most serious problem 
after it had won its independence; how could it maintain this indepen- 
dence? A national bank was established during the first administration. 
Under Hamilton's plan, there was to be capital stock amounting to ten mil- 
lions of dollars, two millions of which were to be raised by the government 
and the remaining amount by popular subscription. The parent bank, 
then located at Philadelphia, established branches throughout the country, 
made payments through them, received moneys due the government and is- 
sued bills which were to be received all over the country for duties, postage 
and other payments to the government. Despite opposition it was granted 
a charter for twenty years and began business in 1791. These financial 
measures gave confidence to the people in their governmental experiment 
and also brought the confidence of foreign countries. 

But every step of progress, every idea in political economy — was 
vigorously challenged. No measures were carried through Congress with- 
out great debate both among its members and among the people outside. 
Self-government means conflict of ideas. Human nature questions mo- 
tives. The psychology of human nature enters as much or more into de- 
mocracy than does the science of economics ; one is a temperamental fact — 
the other is a mechanical theory. The individual States were jealous of 
the powers that they formerly had — powers which were inheritances from 
the days when they were colonies working under charters held from the 
English government. In each State there were men who disliked what 
they called the outside influences of the Federal Government. 

The issue was clear — it was soon seen that the future must decide 
whether the Federal Government should be more powerful than the State 
Governments or whether the converse should be true. Those who held out 
for the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, for stronger federal feeling 
and operation, were called Federalists. They soon had their opponents 
throughout the whole of the Union, and these opponents organized them- 
selves into a political party known as the Democratic Republicans. Among 
their leaders were Jefferson, Randolph, Monroe, Madison, and Gallatin. 
An early test of the powers of the Federal Government in internal affairs 
came. Certain farmers in Pennsylvania, who had their own stills and re- 
fused to pay the internal revenue on their output of whiskey, rebelled and 
were put down by a force of militia from neighboring States. This came 
to be known as the Whiskey Rebellion. 

Differences of opinion — based frequently on self-interests or individ- 

76 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

ual interpretations of human existence, cause political parties. As has been 
shown, the matter of difference of opinion which brought about the birth 
of one political party, was due to open questions on the internal policies of 
the Government. But foreign affairs and threatened "world wars" were 
to occupy official minds after 1792 and it so happened that there came 
the same alignment of opinion on these questions as there had been on in- 
ternal affairs. It is interesting to note the attitude of the American people 
during this world crisis. When the French Revolution got under way, in 
1 789, the people in America, as well as those in Europe, watched its succes- 
sive stages with great interest. When the French populace started to go to 
extremes, after 1792, beheading its king and falling into the hands of po- 
litical leaders who did not hesitate at the worst crimes, the people in the 
United States, as did those in other countries, divided in their opinions: 
some upheld the actions of the French radicals ; some deplored those actions. 
When war came between France and England, Washington decided to take 
a neutral position. 

This immediately called up the disfavor of the Republicans who 
claimed that he should stand by France, our erstwhile friend and against 
England, our erstwhile enemy. To make this position more difficult for 
the President there came the interference with American commerce by Eng- 
land in her efforts against France, until Jay obtained a treaty with Eng- 
land (1794) which settled that matter to some extent. In the following 
year a treaty with Spain settled the disputed matter of the northern boun- 
dary of Florida and gave American ships the right to pass through her pos- 
sessions, which included both sides of the shore at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. 

The political and economic foundations of a nation are so essentially 
the root from which the people themselves have grown that these annals 
must be related in other chapters. Neither can we linger here to consider 
the social conditions other than occasionally to suggest the home life and 
character of the people in its process of national evolution. We look now 
upon Washington for the last time. He is aged with the stupendous bur- 
dens placed on his shoulders — a modern Atlas supporting the New World. 
With dignity of bearing, classical features, cultured voice, we see him as he 
stands before the populace, after serving two terms, and hear him delivering 
his famous Farewell Address in 1797. He was succeeded by John Adams, 
the candidate of the Federalists. Thomas Jefferson, candidate set up by 
the Republicans, received the next largest number of votes and became 
Vice-President. Three days after the inauguration a crisis occurred — the 
American Minister to France (Pinckney) was driven from that country by 
the French Directory, the five men who were then governing France in lieu 

77 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

of any other government. They were grieved because Jay's treaty with 
England amicably settled the differences that had existed between England 
and America and because it precluded the possibility of those two coun- 
tries going to war. 

Angry over the insult, President Adams yielded to pressure and agita- 
tion and sent Marshall, Gerry and Pinckney to Paris as a delegation to set- 
tle the differences with France. Much to the amazement of the American 
people, agents of the French Directory approached these men and proposed 
that they apologize for the denunciation our President had made about 
France, that each of the Directors be given an indemnity of $50,000, and 
that tribute be paid to France. The Americans were aroused. The cry of 
"millions for defence, not one cent for tribute" rang through the country. 
It looked for a time as though we should go to war. During the outburst 
of patriotism which followed, the national song, "Hail Columbia," was 
written and its strains were echoed from town to town. 

National spirit rose to a high point. This culminated in the passage 
of the Alien and Sedition Acts which provided that no foreigner might 
become a citizen until he had resided here nine years. These acts also de- 
fined sedition as speaking or writing about any member of the Federal 
Government with abuse, and provided for proper punishment. These laws 
were carried out with vigor. Opposition to them was wide and aggressive. 
Resolutions were passed declaring them to be unconstitutional and pro- 
claiming that when such laws are passed any State that insists upon their 
unconstitutionality had the right to secede from the Union. Thus was 
born the doctrine of nullification. Meantime, war with France did come 
and the navy of the United States carried on a vigorous campaign against 
French commerce. The Directory fell from power before terms of peace 
could be broached. Napoleon became First Consul of the French Empire. 
These martial acts caused the raising of new revenue in the United States 
in the form of a stamp tax and a direct tax on land, houses and slaves; they 
caused so much opposition in certain parts of the country that the President 
had to call out the militia to restore quiet. A second time it had been 
shown that the Federal Government was determined to uphold the Con- 
stitution. 

The Nineteenth Century opened with many forebodings for democ- 
racy. The Napoleonic wars were to crush Europe under the iron heel of 
the conqueror in the name of republican government — and finally to over- 
throw the conqueror. 

The beginning of the new century brought Jefferson into the Presi- 
dency — a victory for the Democratic Republicans. And in this administra- 
. tion we find the young American nation entering upon a new era of mighty 

78 




HOME LIFE IX KAKLY AMEIIICA— ( ;iiiiii,s,. .,f :m iiit.Tio,- ,,r a i.i,,iHM.r-s linni.. in Ww J-ir^I'ind 
duriuy lirst erntury of Euglish colunizatiou- IIitc wc see tlio I'liritau.s io tlic'lr ""' 
log cabins layiug the I'oundatiou.s lor the American nation. 




FIRST MISSIONARY AMONG THE INDIANS-IIere we see John Eliot who arrivccl from 

England in 1631. delivering the first sermon to the Indians in their native 

tongue on the American continent — Eliot translated the Bible. 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

expansion — we sprang suddenly from a little group of struggling States 
into a great empire. Here we record the greatest real estate transaction in 
the world's history — the Louisiana Purchase which brought the Great West 
into the American nation. And this all came about through the Napoleonic 
wars. The only real victor in the Napoleonic wars was the United States 
— and it gained its victory through its neutrality. Europe was devastated 
by the ravages of war; England defended itself from being crushed out of 
existence and won notable military honor — but the American nation won 
a continental dominion. This all resulted from the fact that Napoleon 
needed money — and we were able to supply it. At this time the American 
nation was crowded into a small corner of the continent. The western 
boundary of the United States was the Mississippi River. The Spanish 
flag floated over the territory west of that river from the British posses- 
sions on the north to Brazil on the south. The southern boundary of the 
United States was the 31st parallel of latitude, and the Spanish Floridas 
occupied all the intervening country below that line from the Atlantic 
Coast to the Mississippi River, completely shutting off the American peo- 
ple from all communication with the Gulf. The ambitious Napoleon 
had secured control of Louisiana in 1800 for the purpose of establishing a 
great western empire — ultimately to absorb the American republic. But 
his plans were not materializing. France was humiliated and in want of 
money. England was preparing to seize the French possessions in Amer- 
ica, which had two years before been ceded back by Spain to France, and 
New Orleans and the Mississippi River were the objective points of attack. 
Twenty ships from the British navy were cruising in the Gulf of Mexico 
off the mouth of the river, waiting for the conflict. Napoleon was alive 
to the situation, and resolved to checkmate England in her plan to obtain 
the coveted prize. 

Accordingly, on the 10th of April, 1803, Napoleon announced to two 
of his counselors, that he had determined to sell his American possessions 
to the United States. His startling proposition met with opposition. The 
next day he held audience with them again, and it was then and there de- 
cided that war with England was inevitable; that money was needed to 
carry it on ; that they could not hold their American territory against Eng- 
land. The only alternative being an immediate sale of the country for 
money, or a seizure without it; they resolved to sell. 

Livingston, the American minister at Paris, was apprised of this prop- 
osition, but it so far exceeded the limits of his instructions, that he could 
not negotiate without authority from Washington. To communicate with 
Washington, and obtain a reply, would occupy about three months. Such 
a delay would be hazardous to the interests of France and the United 

81 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

States. But the new minister, James Monroe, was already on his way to 
Paris, and when he arrived there the proposition was submitted to him. 
Though it exceeded his instructions, he took the responsibility of making 
the treaty and it was signed April 30th, 1803. It stipulated that the 
United States should pay 80,000,000 francs; and, as part of the same 
transaction, 20,000,000 francs should be applied by the United States 
at Washington, to the payment of certain claims owed by France to Ameri- 
can citizens, if they should amount to that sum. The amount finally 
agreed upon was $3,738,268.98. The whole sum actually paid was in 
round numbers $16,000,000 — less than two cents for each one hundred 
acres of land conveyed. 

This epoch-making transaction in America precipitated the war be- 
tween England and France. The matter was conducted so secretly and 
expeditiously, that the minister of England at Paris knew nothing of the 
negotiations till after the treaty was signed. On learning that fact, he at 
once demanded his passports and left for England. The French ambas- 
sador at the Court of St. James also took his passport and left. The events 
which followed need no description here. The clash of arms between these 
two great powers and their allies shook the world from center to circumfer- 4 
ence. Napoleon, who had carried the eagles of France in triumph through 
a hundred battles, was to go down in the conflict a few years later at 
Waterloo, and Wellington, the Iron Duke, was to mount the pedestal of 
fame, as the conquering hero of the world. 

The purport of this transaction in America is but little understood or 
comprehended by the people of this country even to-day. It brought, to 
the American nation a territory much larger in extent than the thirteen 
original States of the Union; greater in agricultural resources and richer in 
mineral wealth. It brought us mountains, magnificent in grandeur; the ^ 
most beautiful scenery on the hemisphere ; and its river courses the longest 
in the world. Twelve great States, each nearly double the size of New 
York, have already been admitted into the Union out of territory east of 
the Rocky Mountains; and there was in addition, the Indian Territory, 
with 64,690 square miles, and the Yellowstone, or National Park, with 
3,575 square miles. There was also taken from Florida, eventually, south 
of the 31st parallel of latitude, 2,300 square miles to be added to Alabama, 
and also 3,600 square miles which was added to Mississippi, to give to 
those two States a water front upon the Gulf of Mexico. 

This territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, then an 
unbroken wilderness, is to-day a great empire, bustling with activities — its 
development too rapid to be calculated, and its possibilities too great to be 
computed. Sixteen millions of dollars was a large sum for our country to 

82 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

assume at that early date, and yet, the sum paid for the entire purchase is 
not equal to the product of the mines in Montana for one month, or the 
wheat of Kansas or the corn of Iowa for a single year. 

How much this nation and the world at large is indebted to Thomas 
Jefferson and James Monroe, for the peaceful acquisition of this territory 
amid threatening and impending difficulties, can never be told or compre- 
hended. This purchase gave us the breadth of the continent from ocean 
to ocean, the command of its rivers and harbors, the wealth of its moun- 
tains, its plains and valleys, a country sweeping from the Gulf to the Lakes 
and the Lakes to the Sea, in which is being worked out the sublimest prob- 
lems of human life and of self-government in the interests of the people. 
Without it to-day the country, if in existence at all — hemmed in by Eu- 
ropean powers on three sides — would be a struggling, provincial, inconse- 
quential people. 

The Napoleonic wars shook the foundations of Europe. The United 
States continued to remain neutral but with much difficulty. Crises con- 
stantly arose which threatened to drag us into the maelstrom. The warring 
nations waged a war to injure commerce and trade. England passed an 
order in Council, which declared the whole coast of Europe — now in con- 
trol of Napoleon ( 1806) — to be blockaded. It was a paper blockade; no 
ships actually carried it out, but American vessels were seized for "running" 
it. In retaliation Napoleon issued the Berlin decree, declaring a "paper 
blockade" against the British Isles. American ships were now seized by 
the French. 

The two nations then issued further decrees with the result that almost 
all trade between America and Europe was stopped. To combat France 
and England, the administration passed a non-intercourse act forbidding 
the importation of all goods from those countries. Reforms were made 
in the American navy and a new treaty made with England; but it made 
no mention of our rights on the seas nor of the impressment of American 
sailors by the English. Smuggling made the embargo, and a successor to 
it, worthless and the outrages against American ships went right on. This 
was the critical situation, when Jefferson's second term came to an end. 
Following Washington's precedent, he refused to stand as candidate for a 
third term, and Madison became President in 1809. 

America Drawn Toward Vortex of Napoleonic Wars 

THE Napoleonic wars still drew America toward the vortex. The 
troubles over shipping were again imminent. The Macon Act, 
named after the Congressman who drew it, provided that United 
States ships would renew intercourse with either of the warring nations 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

that would first withdraw its decrees and would then have no intercourse 
with the other. Napoleon accepted the offer. But when cargoes of Amer- 
ican ships reached French ports, he repudiated his action and seized both 
ships and goods. England, meanwhile, continued her raids on American 
commerce. 

The situation grew tense — the crisis came. Congress convened in 
1811 and decided to declare war on England. In that historic Congress 
we meet Henry Clay. His rival from that time, for forty years, was John 
C. Calhoun. The declaration of war came on June 18th, 1812, five days 
after the British orders in Council had been repealed. But in those days be- 
fore the cable or the ocean steamship, news travelled so slowly that no word 
about the repeal arrived in Washington for several weeks. The procla- 
mation, accompanying the declaration of war, stated that we entered it be- 
cause England had incited Indians to attack Americans, had interfered with 
our trade, had searched our ships off our own ports, and had impressed some 
six thousand of our sailors. The chief events of the war are narrated in 
another chapter. 

Peace came with the Treaty of Ghent, signed in December, 1814. 
The treaty, however, failed to settle any of the matters which had caused 
the war. But the naval victories of America had raised her to higher estate 
in foreign esteem; the war did much to consolidate the Union; and it es- 
tablished American integrity on the high seas. Thus the Napoleonic wars 
unloosed two great forces in America — her great natural resources in the 
West and her commerce ; it started America on her career as a world power. 

In the twenty-five years which passed after Washington's inauguration, 
the population of the country had increased by 5,000,000. Five new 
States had become members of the Union. Immigration was fast making 
the wild regions west of the Appalachians part of the habitable world. 
Wars and treaties with the Indians subdued the savages, and emigration 
became the forerunner of permanent settlements. Kentucky, Vermont and 
Tennessee had become members of the Union before 1800. Ohio had en- 
tered in 1803. New inventions for industrial purposes, new manufactures, 
prosperous banks, and the building of canals showed how the new nation 
had flourished since gaining its independence. Manufacturing was boomed 
by the embargoes against England and France, for heretofore much raw 
material had gone abroad to be sent back to the United States as finished 
product. 

To further encourage manufacture and the "infant industries," socie- 
ties were started everywhere to boycott foreign goods, prizes were offered 
for the best made domestic goods, exchanges for the latter were established, 
men with capital came forward with money for mills, and public officials 

84< 












i^^^j«.. 



Xj^Lji'tl 



UEMAIXS 

Surv 




9FANCIE>,_TCIVILIZATIOxN— Pueblo ruins of the f.unous Cas.i (irande in \n70na 
•ival of prehistoric times— Father Kino said mass within its walls in 1004— f he 
first white men to traverse this territory were two friars in 1538 




btliexed to be the oldest house in the United States— It was built in 1516 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

insisted on wearing and using things ''made in America." The value of 
goods manufactured within the United States in 1810 was $173,000,000. 
Roads and canals were extended to all regions. Steamboats began to ply 
on important rivers ; the Government began to mint gold and silver ; State 
banks came into existence in many places. Suspension of payment by these 
came with the panic caused by the British attack on Washington, but this 
was prevented from recurring by the establishment of a second National 
Bank, modelled after the first. 

This was a period of expansion. James Munroe was elected to the 
Presidency and took office on March 4th, 1817. No Federalist candidate 
ran for office after that time. The differences which had led to the estab- 
lishment of two political parties no longer existed when once the doctrine 
of Federal supremacy had taken root, and after peace reigned in Europe 
the question of American neutrality was no longer raised. 

This, too, was a period of momentous events. The American people 
were beginning to feel their dormant power. The Seminole Indians in 
Florida and the Creeks in Alabama were harassing the white settlers. The 
first force sent against the Indians failed to pacify them. General Jackson 
then invaded the Spanish territory of Florida and took possession of it. 
''He was officially rebuked but publicly applauded." 

At this time also the question of the northern boundary of the Louisi- 
ana Purchase was settled. The line decided upon was the 49th parallel 
north latitude, running from the Lake of the Woods to the summit of 
the Rockies. England and America were to occupy the Oregon territory 
jointly until 1828. The purchase of East and West Florida from Spain 
for the sum of $15,000,000 was completed in 1821, and the western boun- 
daries of the Louisiana Purchase were agreed upon. 

Thus the wings of the great American family continued to spread. 
The acquisition of Florida not only added to our national domain a terri- 
tory seven times larger than Massachusetts, but gave us an unbroken line 
of seacoast from Nova Scotia on the north to the Sabine Pass on the south, 
with no foreign waters washing our shores and no unfriendly settlements to 
embarrass our commerce. The soil of Florida, moistened by Spanish and 
English blood, peacefully passed under the flag of the United States, and 
Spanish grievances were ended. 

American democracy now played its master-hand against Old World 
monarchy and won through diplomacy a more far-reaching victory than 
that of many wars. It took its stand courageously for the integrity and 
preservation of the whole Western Hemisphere — without molestation or 
invasion by any foreign power. This world-molding policy came about in 
this way: Russia, which held the territory now known as Alaska, at- 

87 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

tempted in 1822 to fix its southern boundary at the 52nd parallel, thus tak- 
ing in part of the Oregon territory. The Russian Government also had a 
colony in California and seemed to be bent on excluding Americans from 
the Pacific. John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, protested. He 
proclaimed to the Russians that European nations no longer had the right 
to plant colonies in North America. This was the birth of that principle in 
international law known as the Monroe Doctrine. 

The first test of this daring warning to the world from the new Amer- 
ican nation came in 1823. The possessions of Spain in South America had 
gained their independence, after bloody struggles. They were now threat- 
ened by the Holy Alliance composed of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and 
France. Under these conditions, the United States could never be se- 
cure; the Western Hemisphere would be subject always to invasions from 
the older civilization. England also feared the strength of the Holy Alli- 
ance, with the power it might gain in the western world — ^hence it sug- 
gested to the American Government a protest against the interferences of 
European governments with the South American countries. Coming as 
this did at the same time that our protest was sent to Russia, the suggestion 
was acted upon. President Monroe in his message to Congress, December 
2nd, 1823, proclaimed to the world that the American continents were no 
longer open to European colonization; that America would not engage in 
European affairs (except on occasions when they directly attacked Ameri- 
can integrity) ; that the European nations must not "extend their system" 
to any part of the New World, nor seek to control the destiny of any of the 
countries in it. 

Behind this declaration was the voice of a great people. By its own 
force it became a law. Since that time the American Government has been 
extremely jealous of this doctrine. It has maintained it even so far as tak- 
ing control where a European nation had tried to collect debts from some 
of the smaller republics in this part of the world. The term "extend their 
system" has received the broadest interpretation. European nations have 
since chafed under the Monroe Doctrine, but none has yet dared to test 
its validity with force. 

Great Westward Movement in Immigration 

THE next great movement of the American people was migration 
westward. Trade had declined after the War of 1812; the ex- 
pected good times which were to follow did not arrive. It was 
now that many farmers in the East gathered their families, stock, and 
possessions, and made their way to the new lands In the West by wagon. 
Here they settled, opening up vast stretches in the Middle West. This 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

migration was at its height in 1817. The frontier of the country was 
pushed as far as the western border of what is now Missouri. 

Life on the frontier was crude — the frontiersmen were a stalwart stock 
— not unlike in their gallantry the folk in the days of Rob Roy and Ivanhoe. 
It took hardy people to stand the hardships of the journey thither; their 
open-air life made them sturdy. They fought the beasts of the forests and 
challenged all danger. They could bring with them few of the accessories 
of civilized life. Their homes were log cabins, without glass and without 
stoves or conveniences. Iron was not then as plentiful as it is now. They 
had almost no nails, and their tools were so poor that they cleared their 
lands with the greatest difficulty. But these very hardships developed 
them into a race of shrewd, philosophic, clean-living people, with the breath 
of Nature in their souls, the bronze of the winds on their faces, the roar of 
the forests in their voices, and the stability of the rocks in their muscles. 
Migration took them to Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois and Mis- 
souri — these States, together with Maine, entered the Union between the 
years 1816 and 1821. All but Maine had become populous, due to the in- 
creased migrations. 

The admission of new States raised a question which was to bring 
about the first great national crisis and threaten the dissolution of the 
Union. This was the matter of slavery. As has been noted, the first 
slaves were brought to America by a Dutch ship in 1619. There was no 
protest — they were considered as property. The institution of slavery 
spread and became grafted into our economic system, so that by the time 
the Union was formed it existed in every one of the States. It was a con- 
stitutional right. So long as the country had no industrial life, the em- 
ployment of slaves was economically advantageous. But in the North, 
where industry grew faster and where cities grew larger, the slaves could 
be used only as servants ; they had not the hereditary training necessary to 
be used where skill and technical knowledge were needed — as in factories, 
mills, and shops. Consequently, without service for them in the North, 
slavery in the States above Maryland was dying out of its own accord dur- 
ing the first quarter of the Eighteenth Century. Here develops a strange 
social psychology. 

When all selfish interests are eliminated — when economic values dis- 
appear — then humane instincts rise. So, when the economic gains were 
lifted from the institution of slavery, prejudice arose on humanitarian 
grounds. But the South did not become an industrial region; it was still 
profitable there to use slaves in agriculture; and, when the raising of cot- 
ton became the paramount business of the South it rested almost entirely 
on slave-labor. Consequently, slavery meant economic health to the South- 

89 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

erners — even existence itself. Between the people in the two sections of 
the country there began to be a division of interests over the matter. The 
Northerners were determined to restrict the institution; therefore, when 
new States were admitted to the Union, they raised the question whether 
they should be admitted if they permitted slavery. 

There were twenty-two States in the Union in 1820; the eleven lying 
north of Pennsylvania's southern boundary and west of its western boun- 
dary were "free States"; the remaining eleven were "slave States." Be- 
yond the Mississippi none of the territory was at that time part of any 
State. Consequently, forty-four of the Senators were defenders of the in- 
stitution; the remaining forty- four were opposed to it, in theory at least. 
When Missouri petitioned for admission in 1819 and was known to be a 
slave-holding territory, this balance was threatened. The ensuing dead- 
lock was settled by what was known as the "Missouri Compromise" 
(1820). To offset "slave-holding" Missouri, "free" Maine was admitted 
at the same time. It was agreed that States later created from the Louisi- 
ana Territory should be "slave" if south of the line 36° 30' and "free" 
if north of it. This seemed to be a compromise — but proved to be only 
the postponement of the decision of a vital policy in the future democracy. 
Monroe was re-elected President on his brilliant record, receiving all but 
one of the total of 220 electoral votes. 

Beginning of Modern Age of Industrial Development 

ANEW age now began to dawn — the beginning of the modern age 
of vast industrial development. "Necessity," says the old adage, I j 
"is the mother of invention." There is no greater truth — every 
great invention is the result of a great economic need — it is the answer to 
a social problem. So it was that, with territorial expansion and the estab- 
lishment of new settlements in the West, came the problem of communica- 
tion between that section and the East. Thus we conceived the Erie Canal, 
connecting the Great Lakes with the Hudson River, to solve this problem 
— to meet this necessity. This gave New York a rebirth and greatly re- 
duced freight rates between East and West. Moreover, it established New 
York as the great market and metropolis of the American nation; it gave 
New York the start from which it has since risen to world power — the gate- 
way to a continent. Heretofore, produce and passengers could be trans- 
ported by horse-drawn vehicles only — a slow and costly business. Canals 
were built throughout the whole country — and the problem seemed settled. 
But national growth rapidly exceeded the pace of the canal; it de- 
manded large, swifter channels in which to carry the burden of a nation's 
production. The new West called for transportation — for communication 

90 







t.S 



a 






M a 




GK>,'ERALS OP THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION — This iinpicssivc cniiniving presents Washington surrounded by 
generals who led the American armies to victory in the battles for American independence — This i§ 
the genius that caused the fall of monarchy in the Western World, 




fomiJrehendmg all/the various soils and climates of the world." continent 




FIRST PURE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA — The landing of Roger Williams (1630) — He denied 

the right of magistrates to interfere with the consciences of men and demanded 

"the complete separation of church and state. 




WASHINGTON AND HIS M( )TnKR— Washington was horn February 22nd, 1732, in Virginia, 

son of John Washington and Mary Ball Washington — His father died and 

through his mother's guidance he developed into grea^;n^ss, 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

with the stretching limbs of the continent. Thus the idea of railroads on 
land and steamships on the seas. Experiments were made through the 
twenties with this new power that was soon to break the economic bondage 
of the peoples of the earth, emancipate the world's trade — and create a new 
epoch in civilization. The first use of the steam locomotives economically 
successful was on a line — with gaps — that ran from Philadelphia to Pitts- 
burgh, from 1836 onward. The invention of straw-made paper, farm ma- 
chinery, the telegraph, and the sewing machine, the use of chloroform, 
American-made hardware, anthracite coal, and fire brick all came between 
the years 1825 and 1840 and were due to American genius. In the cities 
the omnibus and street-car began to be used. 

This period saw the rise of the Mormon sect in upper New York and 
their migration as they moved farther and farther west, till they set up a 
city of their own in 1847 at the Great Salt Lake, then in Mexican territory. 
The period saw also the rise of certain features of the American political 
system. With the coming of a broader democratic outlook the punishment 
meted out to convicts was made lighter, free schools, asylums, and better 
prisons were established, and the States amended their constitutions to open 
suffrage to greater numbers. Democracy, too, was experiencing a rebirth 
— it was about to step out into a great industrial age when it should test 
its might with the surviving elements of autocracy and fight for its existence 
against feudalism and oligarchy entering into our industrial life. 

As the Erie Canal was completed there came into the Presidency, John 
Quincy Adams — a National Republican. The first locomotive in this coun- 
try was brought from England; lithographic printing came into America. 
Then came the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency — the first 
President who came up from the ranks and did not belong to the aris- 
tocracy. The first American locomotive, constructed by Peter Cooper, was 
tested on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; the Delaware and Hudson 
Canal and the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal were finished, giving to 
New York and Philadelphia respectively new commercial inland water- 
ways. At this time Dr. John Revere crowned this year of achievement by 
inventing galvanized iron. The ready oxidation of iron had made it more 
vulnerable than wood to the action of the atmosphere. Dr. Revere's dis- 
covery had advanced the world a long step into the iron age. 

We now enter upon an era in which events crowd upon us so rapidly 
that it is necessary to witness each step, year by year — a rapidly moving 
panorama of national progress. The year of 1830 was made memorable 
in the commercial and industrial history of the United States by the nego- 
tiation of a treaty with Great Britain throwing open to American commerce 
all the ports of the West Indies and South America, and by a treaty with 

95 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Turkey giving American ships access to the Black Sea; by the founding of 
what is now the third greatest city of the world, Chicago, at a rude trading 
outpost on Lake Michigan ; by the running of the first steam passenger train 
in America on the Charleston and Savannah Railway, the train being drawn 
by a locomotive built in New York and called the "Best Friend" ; and by 
gazing at the stars through the first American telescope erected at Yale. 

The year of 1831 opened with an insurrection of negroes led by Nat 
Turner. William Lloyd Garrison sent to the press the first copy of the 
Liberator^ his famous anti-slavery paper, which had sprung the movement 
which was to culminate thirty years later in the American Civil War. The 
State of Pennsylvania completed the great freight line from Philadelphia 
to Pittsburgh, part of the way by canal, part by horse railroad. The Alle- 
gheny Mountains were scaled by rail with stationary steam-engines for 
hoisting. Albany and Syracuse were joined by rail and a New York built 
locomotive scored the record of a mile in three minutes on this new road. 
John Henry, of Albany, invented an electric apparatus that produced 
sounds and that was the forerunner of Morse's celebrated invention, the 
telegraph. 

Jackson was again elected to the Presidency in 1832. His opponent 
was Henry Clay, the issue being the rechartering of the National Bank. A 
tariff bill was passed, raising the duties on molasses, reducing it on iron, 
letting raw wool come in free and leaving cotton unchanged. But this 
law did not satisfy the South, and South Carolina threatened nullification 
by summoning her State troops to arms to prevent the enforcement of the 
law. She declared that if her troops were attacked she would withdraw 
from the Union. Jackson denounced this act as treason, and Congress 
enacted a Force Bill giving him the power and money to enforce the law. 
This was the omen of a future crisis. 

The tariff struggle led to the "Compromise Tariff" in 1833, and South 
Carolina, having won a reduction, abandoned nullification. Jackson 
vetoed the rechartering of the Second National Bank on the ground that it 
was undemocratic and was a political machine. The Sacs and Foxes, two 
tribes of Black Hawk Indians, vowed that they would not give ground to 
civilization in Illinois by crossing to the west bank of the Mississippi. 
Under their chief. Black Hawk, they ravaged the frontiers, and were 
crushed and expelled by General Atkinson. The intrepid explorer, School- 
craft, found his way to the headwaters of the Mississippi. New York's 
old Bowery jangled and rattled from the city hall to Fourteenth Street 
with America's first street-car. Massachusetts abolished her age-long cus- 
tom of paying her ministers and the event marked the final separation of 
Church and State in America. Jackson, to clinch the nails in the coffin of 

96 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the National Bank, withdrew the Government funds and placed them in 
certain State banks. 

"Abolition" was the cry in the North. William Lloyd Garrison was 
beaten in Boston by an anti-abolitionist mob in 1835. The Seminoles in 
Florida refused to obey the order of the Government to take up their habi- 
tations west of the Mississippi. They ambushed and slew Major Dade, 
with a hundred United States troops, and massacred General Thompson 
and other whites. This was their second and most serious war. 

Van Buren, a New York Democrat, was elected President in 1836. 
Texas, under the leadership of General Sam Houston, in the battle of San 
Jacinto, severed her connection with Mexico and sought admission as a 
State to the United States, but was rejected by the opponents of the further 
extension of slavery. The House of Representatives passed the "Gag 
Resolution," tabling all resolutions dealing with slavery. John Quincy 
Adams, a member of the House, vigorously opposed this as a violation of 
the right of petition; it was repealed eight years later. One of Jackson's 
last acts as President was to issue his famous "Specie Circular," providing 
that all public lands be paid for in specie only on account of the deprecia- 
tion of the State Bank notes. The act was partially responsible for the 
panic which followed. 

Financial distress now befell the republic. Van Buren's administra- 
tion began in 1837. Calhoun proposed that loans should be made to the 
several States according to their representation in Congress. But, after 
three payments had been made, the panic of 1837 emptied the treasury 
and paralyzed the monetary life of the whole nation. The country had 
grown too fast and furious for its financial health. It had gone mad with 
wildcat banking, with reckless speculation in Western lands, and with 
breakneck industrial expansion in the States. Texas was now recognized 
by the United States as an independent, sovereign Government, and Van 
Buren sent a minister to the new republic to represent the American Gov- 
ernment. In the midst of the great panic and gloom, Morse flashed his 
first telegram over a wire a few miles in length, thus giving lightning's 
wings to words. 

The year of 1838 opened with the founding of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute at Washington, a national laboratory and museum which has been an 
important factor in the scientific progress of the world. In this same year, 
there came into the harbor of New York two giant steamships, the Great 
Western and the ^hius on their regular traffic across the Atlantic. With 
all sails set, with black smoke rolling from a great lone stack amidship, 
and propelled by side wheels, it took these first ocean liners from twenty to 
twenty-five days to cross the Atlantic. 

97 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

America Enters 'Epoch of Invention and Expansion 

AMERICAN invention (described in another chapter) began to place 
its momentum behind American progress. A screw steamship in- 
vented by John Ericsson crossed the Atlantic in 1839, ^ triumph 
of marine engine mechanics. The first real likeness of a human face, made 
by the daguerreotype process, succeeded, and the day was heralded when 
every one who wished, could see his face printed in a picture. Congress, 
with the experience of the panic before it, established subtreasuries for the 
care of the Government money. The year approached its close with the 
noisiest and most rollicking Presidential campaign the country had ever 
seen and Tyler was swept into the Presidency. 

The problem of the National Bank came up to perplex President 
Tyler in 1839, threatening the disruption of his administration. There 
arose serious Canadian boundary disputes with England, and also the 
slavery problem through the mutiny of the crew of the Creole^ a slave ship, 
carrying 135 slaves in the British West Indies, where it was set on fire 
by England. The slaveholders in Congress twisted the British lion's tail 
in herculean fashion. During this excitement, Horace Greeley came to 
the front and published the first copy of the New York Tribune. 

We witness an important diplomatic coup in the year 1840. Daniel 
Webster and Lord Ashburton negotiated a treaty, settling the boundary line 
between Canada and the northeastern boundary of Maine. This is the 
beginning of the settlement of that long line between the Dominion of 
Canada and the United States. Thomas Dorr, a leader of the common 
people in Rhode Island, headed a rebellion to establish popular suffrage. 
At an election held to adopt a new constitution, he claimed that his party 
had won, and he accordingly established a government in opposition to the 
regular State Government. He was arrested as a traitor. But the next 
year his party triumphed and he came forth from prison a political hero. 

Then came the great exploration. Major John C. Fremont was sent 
by the National Government to find a path over the Rocky Mountains to 
the far distant land of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in 1841. He 
planted the Stars and Stripes in the Great West. When his party came 
back with the news of the promised land far beyond the mountains, those 
bold and venturous spirits who had gone as far as Missouri sprang into 
their schooner wagons with all of their household goods, their wives and 
little ones, and set their teams towards the Northwest. 

Within a year (1842) ten thousand American frontiersmen had scaled 
the Rocky Mountains and driven stakes in the new empire. The English 
lion again began to growl and another Presidential campaign dawned. 

98 




WASHINGTON IN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH WAR — Here we see the young soldier fighting 

against the attempt of the French to establish control of region between 

the Mississippi and the Alleghenies, in 1754. 




HOME LIFE U1-' GKOUCK WASHINGTON — Washington with his family at Mount Vernon, Vir- 
ginia — He married Mrs. Martha Custis in 17r>!) and adopted her two children^ — 
The daughter died in young womanhood — ^The son became aide- 
de-camp to Washington in American Revolution. 




DRAFTING THE DECLARATION OP INDEPENDENCE— -The first resolutiou r..r 
dence was presented to the Continental Congress by Richard Henrv Lee of Virj 
June 7, 1776 — A committee was appointed on June 11, to prepare such 
Declaration — It was composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, 
Benjamin Franklin Robert Living-stone. Roarer Sherman — Jefferson 
was appointed in the place of Lee, who had been called home — 
He was selected by the Committee to make the first draft. 



ludepen- 
inia, 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

The Democrats raised the issue: " It is fifty-four forty or fight," and their 
leader, James K. Polk, won on the issue. The Democratic victory also 
swept Texas into the Union as a State. 

The young American nation was expanding by leaps and bounds. 
The first act of President Polk's administration in 1843 was the negotiation 
of a treaty, throwing open Shanghai and other Chinese ports to American 
goods. The invention of the telegraph prophesied the dawn of a new age. 
The whole world was affected by flashes of electricity bearing the epoch- 
making message over a wire between Washington and Baltimore: "What 
hath God wrought*?" It was in the following year ( 1844) ^^^^ New York 
and Philadelphia were connected by telegraph. Then came another world- 
molding discovery in the discovery of petroleum in Western Pennsylvania 

(1845). 

The stage of American history was crowded with events in 1846. 
England and the United States drew the Oregon boundary line at the 49th 
parallel, and peace reigned again between London and Washington. But 
the admission of Texas as a State precipitated between the United States 
and Mexico a boundary question that drew the sword as arbiter. Mexico 
demanded that the Neuces River be made the southern boundary of Texas, 
while the United States demanded with equal emphasis that the Rio Grande 
River be made the boundary. General Taylor was sent to hold this region. 
His advance forces were attacked and the Mexican War followed. It was 
the third real war that had come to this country since the day of the 
embattled farmers at Lexington. New England strenuously objected to 
the war, on the ground that any annexation of Mexican territory would 
extend the black cloud of slavery, now hovering ominously over the peace 
and harmony of the whole country. Nevertheless, all the rest of the 
country flung its heart and soul into the war as if on a moral crusade. 
These events are related in the chapter on "Great American Wars." While 
they were occurring, American sailors set up the independent State of Cali- 
fornia. The one great invention of this period was the patenting of the 
sewing machine by Elias Howe, of Boston. It was during this time also 
that the House of Representatives passed the Wilmot Proviso to exclude 
slavery from any territory to be acquired from Mexico (1847). The bill 
was defeated in the Senate. 

The Americans gained an empire with the end of the war with Mexico 
and the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hildalgo in 1848. For $18,000,000 
Mexico sold to the United States all the northern half of her territory, 
including all that region now known as California, Nevada, most of Ari- 
zona, New Mexico, Utah and a part of Colorado. The boundary of Texas 
was fixed at the Rio Grande. The war had made General Taylor a na- 

101 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

tional hero and the Whigs nominated and elected him President over Cass, 
his Democratic opponent. The Oregon Territory was organized by a bill 
that prohibited slavery. The Mormons, expelled from Illinois and Ne- 
braska, now permanently established themselves on the shores of Salt Lake, 
Utah. Chicago's great future was assured in the finishing of a canal that 
connected the Great Lakes with the Mississippi Valley. One of the great 
romances of American history, a tale that surpasses all fiction, began to 
unfold itself. A man, stumbling, had turned up with his foot a great 
nugget of gold in California. It was the signal for another migration, and 
the eager adventurous spirits of the whole land flocked to the golden shores 
of the Pacific. 

Dawn of the Golden Age of the Great Pacific 

THE dawn of the new age of the Pacific — the golden age — now 
awakened the young America. Under the name of the Forty- 
Niner (1849), representatives of every class of citizens in the 
United States, except the old slave-owners, became gold hunters. By the 
end of the year, forty millions of dollars of the yellow metal were found. 
Economic determinism here played a strange part in America's future. 
This event doomed all possibility of the extension of slavery in the West 
on two peculiar grounds : first, sociologically the eager gold hunters did not 
tolerate negroes working at their elbows; secondly, the negro was not 
physiologically adapted to the development of the mining industry. The 
exodus to California so increased its population within a few months that 
a constitutional convention at Monterey asked Congress to admit California 
into the American Union as a free State. A critical political situation now 
arose. If California should be admitted as a free State this would jeopard- 
ize the Southern majority in the Senate. But President Taylor, a South- 
erner, recommended the admission. The South was agitated. It de- 
manded that the Missouri Compromise be extended beyond its original lim- 
its of the Louisiana Purchase, so as to include Southern California, mak- 
ing that part of the territory a slave State. It was at this stage, created by 
the discovery of gold, that the South began to threaten secession if Califor- 
nia was made a free State. President Taylor died, and Fillmore, a North- 
erner, assumed the responsibility. 

Coming events cast their shadows before them. The North and the 
South now set to work to formulate a truce in the Compromise of 1850 — 
but it was only a truce. Both sections dreaded the thought of the future. 
Farseeing men everywhere saw tlie great nemesis it held in restraint — only 
soon to break over the nation like a tornado. A Southern convention had 
solemnly declared that a State had the abstract right to secede from the 

102 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Union. A compromise bill was passed admitting California as a free 
State, organizing New Mexico and Utah as territories, and forbidding their 
legislatures to restrict slavery, fixing the northwestern boundary of Texas as 
at present, and paying to the State the sum of $ 1 0,000,000 for relinquish- 
ing its claim on Mexico. To pacify the South, a Fugitive Slave Act was 
passed, enabling a master or his agent to take a fugitive from a State in 
which he was residing, without jury trial in that State. It imposed a fine 
on all who interfered with the capture and recovery of fugitive slaves; it 
compelled all citizens who were summoned to aid in the capture to give 
their assistance; it provided a fee of ten dollars to be paid to a United 
States marshal for capturing slaves, and five dollars for capturing others. 
The slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia. 

Here, too, we find the genesis of the Panama Canal. The expansion 
of the United States, westward to the Pacific Coast, brought to the fore the 
problem of piercing the Isthmus of Panama with a canal, or one across 
Central America. England had secured control over the coast of the 
Mosquito Indians, occupying the only practical eastern terminal of a Cen- 
tral American canal. To persuade England to withdraw from this terri- 
tory, the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was negotiated. It provided that neither 
Government was to have exclusive control of the canal ; that the canal must 
not be fortified, or the land about it colonized; and that neither Govern- 
ment should assume control over any part of Central America. Both Gov- 
ernments guaranteed the protection and neutrality of the canal. It was at 
this time that General Lopez, a Cuban patriot, came to the United States, 
organized a filibustering expedition, and invaded Cuba. After a passing 
success, Lopez fled and his followers were captured, but the Spanish authori- 
ties finally surrendered them to the United States. 

The economic problem of slavery, despite the heroic measure of the 
statesmen, continued to fulminate. The attempt to execute the Fugitive 
Slave Law in the North created moral sentiment in 1851. The arrest of a 
single negro in Pennsylvania did more to arouse the plain people of the 
North than all the preachings and writings of William Lloyd Garrison, 
Wendell Phillips, and other abolitionists had done in twenty years. Many 
Northern States were quick to pass "personal liberty" laws, forbidding 
state officers to aid in capturing slaves, and preventing citizens from taking 
part in the return of fugitives. Underground railways were built from the 
border States of the South to Canada, by means of which many negroes 
were transported to freedom. Simultaneously, new issues were arising. 
Maine legally forbade the making and selling of intoxicating liquors. San 
Francisco, having drawn to itself, through the gold fever, the adventurers 
of the earth, was compelled to organize a vigilance committee to deal with 

103 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

disorder. During this year, General Lopez headed another filibustering 
expedition to Cuba, and this time he was defeated, captured, and with fifty 
of his followers was executed. 

The patriarchs of the American nation were now passing away. 
Daniel Webster — the last of the great triumvirate of Clay, Calhoun, and 
Webster — died. The leadership of the nation, in the great struggle it had 
now entered, had fallen upon the shoulders of new and younger men. It 
was at this moment that an epoch-forming book now issued forth under the 
title of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" — a book which proved to be political propa- 
ganda that was to make history. The story, written by Harriet Beecher 
Stowe, filled the Northern heart with anti-slavery emotions. It had a 
more far-reaching effect than all the legislation or abolition agitation. It 
massed onto one stage of action, with all the intensity of the romanticist, 
situations intended to arouse moral sentiment. During this excitement, 
however, Franklin Pierce, a Northern Democrat, was chosen President. 

American discovery now interrupted the agitation long enough to 
observe Dr. Elisha Kane, heading an Arctic expedition, reach a point that 
remained for years "Farthest North," in 1853. 

But only for an instant — when the scene turns again to the slavery 
problem. Statesmen struggled with the problem. In the United States 
Senate, Stephen A. Douglas, an Illinois Democrat, brought forth a bill 
claiming that the Compromise of 1850 had displaced the Compromise of 
1820 regarding slavery in the territories. Douglas proposed that the 
Northwest should be divided into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, 
both north of 36°, 30', and that each territory should decide for itself 
whether slavery should be permitted or not. The bill became a law; it 
was immediately dubbed "squatter sovereignty." This resulted in the 
creation of a new anti-slavery party in the North, called at first the anti- 
Nebraska men, which culminated in the outbreak of civil war in Kansas 
between the slavery and anti-slavery factions. 

Again public attention was diverted long enough to witness Com- 
modore Perry, an American naval officer, head a naval expedition to Japan, 
and by threats, cajolery, and shrewd diplomacy, succeed in persuading the 
Japanese to open their ports to American trade (1854). From this date 
began what is called modern Japan. Canada and the United States prac- 
tically broke down their trade barriers on the border and entered into a free 
exchange of their commodities. This season of commercial brotherhood 
lasted for twelve years, when the United States abrogated the treaty. 
Filibustering expeditions to Cuba continued and the Black Warrior was 
seized by the Spanish Government in the island. The American ministers 
to Great Britain, France, and Spain met at Ostend and drew up a mani- 

104 




VIEW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF :MK'III(:.\N_it was chartered in ISMT and first opened at 

Ann Arbor, in 1841 — It has nearly 7,000 students — The institution is part 

of the public educational system of the State. 




LARGEST STATE UNIVERSITY IN AMERICA— Tli is is a glimpse of the University of Minne- 
sota, near Minneapolis — 'It was founded in 18G.S and has more than 9,000 students — 
Jt is the head of the system of public education in Minnesota, 




GALLERY OF I'QUTRAITS OF PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES— 17S"J-1S0U. 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

festo declaring that the sale of Cuba by Spain and its purchase by the 
United States was most desirable; but that if Spain refused to sell, the 
United States would be compelled to "wrest it from her." 

The incipient anti-slavery war in Kansas now burst into a flame in 
1855. The arrival of numerous immigrants from New England brought 
matters to a crisis. Emigration from the South was light, but the Mis- 
sourians, who called themselves "Sons of the South," crossed into Kansas 
to establish a government, and to hold the best land until actual Southern 
settlers should appear. Rival governments were set up, and conflict fol- 
lowed. Lawrence was sacked by the pro-slavery forces. In revenge, John 
Brown, with his followers, massacred some of the "Sons of the South" at 
Pottawatomie. Kansas had become "bleeding Kansas." It was under 
this stress that the Republican party was born. It was in the form of a 
revolt against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The new party descended from 
the free soilers, and it gradually absorbed every party and faction in the 
country opposed to slavery. 

Indian massacres were added to the slavery disturbances in 1856. 
The white man had made an enemy of the Indians in Oregon, and they 
attacked and massacred the settlers just as they had done two or more 
centuries before in New England and in New York. An episode now 
occurred that illuminated the intense bitterness of feeling gathering between 
the North and the South over slavery. Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, 
more eloquent than judicious, made a speech in the Senate, denouncing 
several Senators because of the "Crime of Kansas." For this speech, Sum- 
ner was assaulted and beaten senseless by a nephew of the South Carolina 
Senator. The assailant was hailed as a hero throughout the South. The 
Democrats elected one more President, James Buchanan, out of the po- 
litical struggle over slavery. 

The slavery question finally reached the highest courts for judicature. 
Dred Scott, a negro, sued for his freedom, and the United States Supreme 
Court decided in 1857 that no negro, free or slave, was a citizen and there- 
fore could not bring any suit at law. The decision implied that the 
Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional in its discrimination against 
slavery. The people of Kansas were now permitted to vote on the ques- 
tion whether they would accept a constitution with or without slavery. 
The free-soil people refused to vote for a constitution — one way or the 
other — and thus the votes "with slavery" exceeded those "without slavery" 
and slavery was declared established. The Democrats in Congress con- 
tended for the legality of this election. 

The new republic was indeed heavily distressed. To add to the bur- 
dens another great panic swept the country — the panic of 1857. It sprang 

107 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

from over-capitalization, the over-building of railroads, the rise in prices 
and mania for speculation following the discovery of gold in Australia and 
California, the diminishing of the specie reserve, bad crops in America and 
^cood ones abroad, bad State banking, and the diminution of the gold out- 
put. The whole country stood bankrupt. The last spikes were driven in 
a railroad, connecting the Atlantic with the Mississippi River, between 
Baltimore and St. Louis. The Mormons had grown at such rate in num- 
bers and ambition that they demanded that Congress admit Utah as a 
State of the Union. Congress refused, and the Latter-Day Saints rose in 
rebellion. United States troops crushed the uprising. 

Americans Great Tragedy — and the Reconstruction of the Nation 

WE now look upon the tall, gaunt figure of the man who was to be- 
come the "savior of the nation." The greatest joint political dis- 
cussion this country has ever beheld took place on the stump in 
the State of Illinois in 1858. The debaters were two strong men — Lincoln 
and Douglas. Here the issue assumed decisive form. Douglas supported 
his "popular sovereignty" doctrine as against the Dred Scott decision. The 
State-rights issue was now clearly before the people. There was no eva- 
sion; it must be decided in the next political campaign. 

It was during this agitation that an event brought great rejoicing to 
both America and England, the laying of the first Atlantic cable by Cyrus 
Field (1859). A new and rich gold district was also discovered in the 
West and the "Forty-nine" rush was repeated. The discovery of silver in 
Nevada in Golconde quantities produced a group of Western silver kings 
who entered politics and set up a new standard in the United States Senate. 

The slavery agitation fumed over in mob riot. John Brown, conceiv- 
ing the idea of establishing a black republic, led a raid into Virginia to 
arouse the slaves. He was seized after a short fight by United States 
troops, tried, and executed. The event inflamed the South, which charged 
that Northern abolitionists had employed Brown to make war on them. 
The North hailed Brown as a martyr. Kansas now formed and adopted 
a constitution prohibiting slavery and asked admission as a State into 
the Union. 

At last the storm burst upon the nation I It could not longer be held 
in political restraint. After eighty-three years of political experiment in 
the republic, the economic problem demanded decisive action. We enter 
upon the period of Civil War and Reconstruction (1861 to 1877 — sixteen 
years). Lincoln was elected to the Presidency; Douglas was defeated. 
The South seceded — and the American Civil War fell upon the country 
like a tornado from overhead, an earthquake from underneath, and de- 

108 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

vouring flame sweeping through the nation. These four years of terrific 
warfare are fully described in the chapter on "Great American Wars." 

We will linger here, therefore, at the moment of crisis, only to 
record in this narrative the essential facts that South Carolina was the first 
State to leave the Union by calling a convention on December 20, i860. 
The other States, supporting the doctrine of "State Sovereignty," followed 
within the next few months. On the eve of the Union's great crisis, the 
Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, visited the United States 
and reported to his mother. Queen Victoria, what he had learned. The 
seceding States organized a government with a constitution, called the 
Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as President (1861). 

The underlying causes of the Civil War were the doctrine of Popular 
Sovereignty and Slavery. Great Britain, on May 13th, recognized the 
Confederate States as belligerents. During this crisis the first telegraph 
line from St. Louis to San Francisco was built over the country from ocean 
to ocean and clicked and flashed through the Union. On New Year's 
in 1863, Lincoln brought into effect his celebrated Emancipation Procla- 
mation, proclaiming all slaves free in the States in rebellion. This was the 
moral turning-point in the war, but it rallied around the Government all 
the moral power and energy of the Northern States. West Virginia, which 
had refused to secede, was admitted to the Union as a separate State. To 
emphasize the frightfulness of the times, the Sioux rose in Minnesota and 
committed their savage atrocities on the white inhabitants before they were 
crushed by General Pope. The war called for billions of money as well 
as legions of men, so Congress passed an extremely high tariff bill and an 
internal revenue law, taxing almost every sort of business by means of 
license and taking a heavy toll from liquor dealers and theaters. A tax 
was also levied on incomes for the first time in the history of the country. 
The rich silver mines of the Nevada region had attracted to it a sufficient 
number of inhabitants to admit it to statehood and under these circum- 
stances Nevada became a sovereign State of the Union. The Stars and 
Stripes broke out from the flag-staff of Fort Sumter on April 14th, 1865, 
just four years, to the hour and the minute, from the time it had been 
hauled down. 

On this historic day (April 14, 1865) there occurred the saddest per- 
sonal event in the whole history of the country. President Lincoln was 
shot by John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theater. This event came like a 
stab at the heart of the nation's rejoicings over the end of the Civil War. 
Jefferson Davis, who had fled South just before the fall of Richmond, was 
captured in Georgia and imprisoned on May 1 1, 1865. President Johnson 
succeeded Lincoln. 

109 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Foreign relations now engrossed the Government's attention. In 
1861 a combined army of French, English and Spanish soldiers had gone 
to Mexico to hold her ports until she paid certain debts. When it was seen 
that Emperor Napoleon III of France had designs on the country, England 
and Spain withdrew their soldiers. In defiance of the Monroe Doctrine, 
the French Emperor set up Maximilian, brother of Francis Joseph of 
Austria, as Emperor of Mexico. As soon as the Civil War ended General 
Sheridan was sent to Mexico with 50,000 troops. The French withdrew, 
and the Mexicans reestablished their republic, executing Maximilian. 
During this time also the Fenians, a body of men of Irish birth who had 
brought with them to America deep animosity against England and many 
of whom had served in the Union army, organized an expedition to invade 
Canada and succeeded in crossing the border, but after a short skirmish 
with Canadian troops they returned to the United States. 

America Arises from Economic Ruin to World Power 

WE enter upon a new epoch — an epoch, which, after passing 
through the reconstruction days, brings us into an age of great 
inventions, industrial expansion, and world power. The United 
States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7,000,000 in 1867. The critics 
of Secretary Seward said it was "money thrown away." 

The House of Representatives impeached President Johnson in 1868 
for high crimes and misdemeanors in office and he was brought to trial — 
the only President of the United States ever tried on impeachment charges 
by Congress. It required a two- thirds vote to convict the President and 
take his office from him. His "radical" antagonists failed by just one vote 
to secure the necessary majority. All the Southern States except Virginia, 
Mississippi, and Texas, were readmitted to Congress. The Fourteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution was officially adopted by the States. On 
the following Christmas a final proclamation of amnesty was issued, pardon- 
ing all who took part in the rebellion. General Grant was elected to the 
Presidency. 

The panic of "Black Friday" swept the country in 1869. The con- 
tinent of the United States was now conquered by rail. The Union and 
Central Pacific railroad, aided by a government bonus of $27,000,000, 
drove the last spike in the Union Pacific railroad on May 10, 1869. The 
territories of Wyoming and Utah voted to allow woman suffrage on cer- 
tain questions. The industrial expansion necessitated the organization of 
labor. The Knights of Labor, the father of all the labor organizations 
in this country, was formed. 

The final step in universal male suffrage came with the Fifteenth 

110 




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GALLERY OF PQKTIUITS OF PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES— 18^7-1849. 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Amendment to the Constitution, which was adopted by the States in 1870. 
The negroes everywhere now had the right to vote. The remaining South- 
em States were admitted to the Union after they had ratified both the 
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. President Grant, besieged more 
than any of his predecessors by an army of office seekers, advised Congress 
of the need of selecting Government officials from a competitive list. His 
message was a challenge to the Congress to lift the Civil Service of the 
Government above the greed and corruption of party politics. Congress 
authorized him to provide for examinations. But the Civil Service re- 
formers were ahead of their times, for after three years Congress withheld 
the appropriation and the reform ended for the time. The great fire of 
Chicago occurred in 1871. Two hundred lives were lost and $200,000,000 
in property destroyed, but, when the smoke had cleared away, Chicago be- 
gan to rebuild a greater city which since has risen to the rank of the second 
largest metropolis on the Western Hemisphere. 

The aftermath of the Civil War prolonged itself through the years. 
It was only through the courage and character of the American race — and 
the inherent justice of its national ideals — that this period of reconstruc- 
tion was safely passed. Claims were presented to England for the damage 
done during the Civil War by commerce destroyers of the Confederacy 
which had been built and fitted out in British ports. England had per- 
mitted the Alabama^ a Confederate privateer, to prey on American com- 
merce, but after the war the two countries had agreed to settle the claim 
by arbitration and a commission was appointed. It sat at Geneva, Switzer- 
land, in 1872, and awarded to the United States damages to the amount 
of $15,500,000 in gold to be paid out of the British treasury. At the same 
time there was another dispute between the two countries; both sides 
claimed the island of San Juan on the extreme northwest boundary of 
Canada. The question was finally submitted to the German Emperor, 
William I, who awarded the island to the United States. General Grant 
was again chosen President. The Southern States still suffered under the 
burdens of reconstruction. During these days, Boston was visited by a 
$70,000,000 fire, destroying the business heart of the city. 

The strength of the nation was now severely tested by another great 
financial panic which swept the country — the panic of 1873. It sprang 
from a combination of causes, among them were the over-capitalization of 
railroads and industries, need of currency to move crops, the heavy land 
mortgages in the West, unrest due to exposure in public life, the Boston 
and Chicago fires, and the growing extravagance in living. The failure of 
Jay Cook & Co., of Philadelphia, brought on the crisis. The panic ran for 
five years, reaching its climax with 5,000 failures in its last year. The 

113 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Spanish captured the Virginius, an American vessel carrying supplies to the 
Cuban insurgents, executed a number of American sailors and the United 
States went to the verge of war with Spain over the episode. The general 
public was aroused. 

The Southern States, goaded almost to despair by financial and politi- 
cal manipulators, known as the "carpet-bag" domination, attempted to 
throw it off in 1874. Business credit was now at such a low ebb in the 
country that Congress passed an act providing for the redemption of every 
legal tender note in gold after January 1st, 1879. Out of the opposition 
to this measure arose the "Greenback Party." Congress, persisting in its 
efforts to secure to the negroes the full enjoyment of their freedom in 
the South, passed another civil rights bill, forbidding discriminations 
against negroes in inns, public conveyances, theaters and other places of 
amusement. The Supreme Court wrote across this law the decision, de- 
claring "rights" to be not civil but social and that in such matters the 
State and not the nation had jurisdiction. Charles Brush, the noted 
pioneer electrical engineer of Cleveland, invented the "Brush light" and 
thus increased by billions the resources and energies of modern humanity. 

The first great industrial and commercial exposition of the country 
was held in Philadelphia in 1876, to celebrate the first century of the 
Declaration of Independence, the South sent its men and women with their 
wares, and for the first time within a generation the whole country breathed 
with the faint consciousness of a national spirit. This year was to end the 
crisis brought on by slavery and the agitation over it. After a bitter con- 
test, Hayes became President. 

The war between the North and the South had not only settled the 
question as to whether a State might secede from the Union; it had also 
given birth to an industrial revolution throughout the whole country. It 
has been said that the McCormick reaper released enough men from the 
farms in the North to allow five army corps to be put in the field against 
the South. With the abolition of slavery the South could no longer have 
agriculture as its sole industry and began to develop its resources. Bir- 
mingham, Chattanooga, and Atlanta became great industrial centers. Coal 
fields of almost unlimited extent were discovered and opened up. Even 
the cultivation of cotton was to improve in spite of the fact that it had 
heretofore depended almost entirely on slave labor. 



114 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 



T 



America Conquers Its Obstacle and Marches Forward 

, HE nation that does not have serious problems to face is not making 
progress. Every step forward brings new obstacles to be con- 
quered. The American nation has been beset by constant prob- 
lems because it is constantly marching forward. Every new invention and 
every step of industrial progress creates new economic conditions that re- 
quire adjustment. Thus arise the labor troubles, which are but fulmina- 
tions of American energy and ambition. We now enter upon a new epoch, 
which may be called the Period of Expansion — 1877 to 1900 — twenty- 
three years. This brings us to entirely new scenes in our rapidly moving 
story. It is a picture of wonderful expansion — invention, industrial prog- 
ress, intermingled with exciting situations and rising to a great climax in 
the Spanish-American War. It includes the first telephone message, first 
electric lights, the building of Brooklyn Bridge and the Northern Pacific 
Railroad; the erection of the Statue of Liberty, the building of the West, 
Americans invading Cuba and the Philippines, and the triumph of the 
United States as a world power. 

This is a period of stupendous plans brought to successful culmination. 
In the North, the use of petroleum for commercial purposes was to create 
a new giant industry. Bessemer steel, wire nails, cotton-seed oil, coke, and 
canned goods began to be put on the market and the output of them in- 
creased at an astounding rate. In the Northwest, the flour output was 
reaching immense proportions. And the United States was becoming the 
meat market for all Europe. The frontiers of the country disappeared soon 
after the war. Where there had been forests and untilled prairie, there 
now came to be prospering farms. The "Great American Desert" was no 
more, for as men penetrated the region they found that it could be made 
into good farm land. Cattle and sheep began to graze where wild hordes 
of buffalo had grazed two decades earlier. "Boom" towns came into being 
throughout the whole region, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, and 
from the Mexican Gulf to the Canadian border. 

Under these circumstances, where there was more work to be done 
than there were men to do it, and where a new device had possibilities for 
profit, it was not surprising that mechanical inventions should come in 
quick order. A new transatlantic cable was laid. Dynamite was intro- 
duced. The Gatling gun became a part of the Government's ordnance. 
Barbed wire was used to close in the great ranches in the West. In the 
business world the typewriter came into use. On the railroads came the 
air brake, the car coupler and improved switches. The canning industries 
grew with improvements for turning out the cans in larger quantities. 

115 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

The newspapers installed presses that could produce tens of thousands of 
copies of one issue in a few minutes. The cable-drawn cars were intro- 
duced in the cities and the electric light began to be used to illuminate 
streets. Electricity came to be used for motors. All the minor and 
superior inventions, which mark the present generation's triumphs, had 
their beginning in this period — the phonograph, the telephone, the camera, 
the bicycle, the gas engine, elevators and "sk)^scrapers." 

Let us rapidly pass through these expanding years. We begin with 
railroad strikes in 1877, where the strikers destroyed $40,000,000 in Pitts- 
burgh and many millions in Chicago, when over one hundred rioters were 
killed by United States troops. During this distress, Alexander Graham 
Bell invented the telephone which was further to revolutionize American 
industry and inaugurate a new epoch. Congress remonetized silver in 1878 
to raise the value of the white metal which had fallen to its lowest figures 
on account of the discovery of new mines. A Pension Bill was passed, 
allowing claims for "back pensions." A treaty was negotiated with China 
in 1880, stopping Chinese immigration to this country whenever desired. 
There was a triangular struggle in the National Republican Convention 
with Blaine, Grant and John Sherman as candidates. Garfield was chosen 
as the compromise candidate and was elected President. Party feuds 
agitated Guiteau to shoot President Garfield at the Pennsylvania Station in 
Washington on July 2, 1881. He died ten weeks later, and Chester A. 
Arthur became President. Edison improved on what Brush had done to 
light the world with electricity, and private companies began to install 
electric lighting plants in all the chief cities of the country. The Govern- 
ment sent Lieutenant Greely on an expedition for scientific research in tht 
Arctic. Nearly all of his party perished, the survivors, including himself, 
being brought back three years later. There was held in 1881 in Atlanta 
a great Southern exposition in which the old South was reincarnated and 
rechristened the "New South," the "forward-looking South," the "young 
men's South." The exposition caused the North to open its eyes with 
admiration at the South's quick reaction and recovery. 

The growth of the country was unparalleled. Congress passed a 
Chinese Exclusion Bill to keep the Chinese out of this country in masses in 

1882. The assassination of President Garfield, who was called the "vic- 
tim of the Spoils system," moved Congress to pass a Civil Service law in 

1883, taking most of the minor government appointments out of politics 
and basing them on competitive examination. The postal service had 
grown to such an extent that letter postage was reduced to two cents. The 
Northern Pacific Railroad, the second ocean-to-ocean line, was completed 
and opened to traffic. The great Brooklyn Bridge, connecting Manhattan 

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FAMOUS PAINTING OF BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG— This historic canvas was historically arranged by 

John B. Bachekler; painted by James Walker; and engraved by H. B. Hall — It gives a correct 

panoramic view of the battle with the mountains in the distance. 




TUUNIMG rOINT OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR — Here we look upon the Battle of Gettysburg, the 
est battle on American soil — It was fought on July 1, 2, 3, 18(j:} — ^After a heroic struggle, Lee 
was forced to retreat and Meade led the Federal Army to victory. 




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NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

and Brooklyn, was completed, and on the first day one hundred thousand 
people crossed the bridge. The South made a further display of its great 
resources in an exposition at New Orleans. Grover Cleveland was elected 
President of the United States in 1884, the first Democrat in twenty-eight 
years. 

The South now came back into the National Government in the robes 
of office, and with unspeakable joy. The people of France, with character- 
istic emotion, presented the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty to the people of the 
United States and it was erected in New York Harbor in 1886. The 
Apaches, the most savage tribe of all the red men, headed by Geronimo, 
were captured after committing many depredations, and after a long pursuit 
through New Mexico and Arizona. An earthquake that shook the whole 
South Atlantic seaboard from two to three hundred miles into the interior 
almost destroyed Charleston, South Carolina. Chicago was visited by 
labor troubles and the Haymarket riot created tense feeling between capital 
and labor. All industrial centers of the country were in such imminent 
peril of the labor wars at this time that New York, Missouri, Iowa, and 
Kansas found it necessary to establish State boards of arbitration, without, 
however, conferring compulsory powers upon them. 

Labor, religion, invention, now crowded the public mind. The Su- 
preme Court affirmed the Edmunds Law, dissolved the Mormon Church 
Corporation in 1887, and declared its property in excess of $50,000 for- 
feited to the United States; the property was restored three years later. 
Congress now created another institution, the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission, to prevent railroads when operating in more than one State from 
charging unfair rates or discriminating between persons. Out of the 
labor troubles was born the American Federation of Labor. Labor now 
forced Congress to exclude all Chinese laborers from the soil of the United 
States and not to readmit Chinamen who had returned to China. Cleve- 
land took a strong stand for a "tariff for revenue" and was defeated for 
President by Benjamin Harrison. Edison invented the electrical trolley, 
and the first electric cars were run in the hilly streets of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia. The invention was the greatest spur to the growth and progress of 
the American cities. 

International relations intermingled with domestic problems. Eng- 
land, Germany, and America jointly occupied the Samoan Islands in 1889. 
The President declared the Behring Sea and the seal fur trade in Alaska 
closed to foreign nations. Fifty thousand persons, eager to own their own 
homes, camped on the borders of Oklahoma, and when the Government 
lowered the bars, rushed across the line. Massachusetts introduced the 
Australian Ballot system. A Pan-American Congress was held at Wash- 
ington. 

121 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Tremendous 'Developments of hast Decade of "Nineteenth Century 

THE last decade of the Nineteenth Century witnessed tremendous 
developments. The McKinley Tariff Bill and the Dependent 
Pension Law were passed. Railroads, oil, sugar, meat, tobacco, 
leather, lumber, steel, became such gigantic industries that each was or- 
ganized into great trade units, and trusts or monopolies now began to 
spring up all over the country. This great movement in industry caused 
Congress to pass the Sherman Anti-Trust Law to prevent restraint of trade 
in interstate commerce. But for years the law lay moribund in the Federal 
Statutes while the trusts went on growing into huge combinations of capital. 
The Mergenthaler typesetting machines were introduced in the printing 
industry, and the day of the one-cent newspaper was dawning. 

The workers in the steel mills at Homestead, Pennsylvania, went out 
on a strike and one of the most violent labor wars ensued in 1892. Cleve- 
land, who held on tenaciously to his lower tariff policies, came back into 
the White House — the only President of the United States who had suc- 
ceeded himself after an interregnum. 

The spirit of annexation, or imperialism, now arose. Queen Liliuo- 
kalani, of the Hawaiian Islands, had been overthrown by a party of revo- 
lutionists. Among them were some Americans, and strong pressure was 
brought in the United States to have the Government annex the Islands 
in 1893. President Harrison had sent a treaty to the Senate, making the 
Islands American territory, but before the treaty was ratified, Cleveland 
entered the White House and withdrew it from the Senate. The Behring 
Sea Commission met at Paris and rejected the claims of the United States 
to control seal fishing outside of the three miles' limit. Colorado granted 
full suffrage to women. The World's Columbian Exposition was held at 
Chicago and its most unique feature was a world congress of religions and 
creeds, bringing to the same platform, Brahmans, Buddhists, Moham- 
medans, and Christians. The business faith of the country was severely 
shaken by the hoarding of gold and the fear of radical tariff legislation. 
The country was plunged into a terrific panic; a million people in the 
United States were forced to depend on charity in municipal soup kitchens. 

The Pullman car factory employees of Chicago went on a strike in 
1894, ^^^^ surpassed all its predecessors in the destruction of property. 
United States mail cars were stopped. Cleveland sent battalions of United 
States troops to Chicago to check the violence. John P. Altgeld, the 
"Labor" Governor of Illinois, protested that the President's action was an 
illegal interference with the government of the State. 

International complications under the Monroe Doctrine arose in 1895. 

122 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Great Britain was about to force Venezuela to accept a disputed boundary 
line. The United States urged that the dispute be left to arbitration. 
The British Cabinet replied that the matter did not concern Washington, 
and in substance that it take itself out of the business of protecting Latin- 
American countries. President Cleveland, who had nailed his flag to tariff 
reform rather than be elected without it, who had driven a hostile Congress 
to demonetize silver, and who had defied lawlessness, met the situation with 
an iron hand — he wrote the strongest message on international relations 
that had ever issued from the White House. He invoked the Monroe 
Doctrine, a policy which England had long claimed with pride to have 
inspired. Congress upheld him and England and Venezuela arbitrated 
the question. 

The next step of importance, which was to engage the Government's 
attention, was to lead the country into war. The islanders in Cuba for 
years past had been fighting for independence from Spain, and the 
Spaniards had been retaliating with cruel measures, which brought criticism 
from the American people. Congress, in 1896, recognized the belligerent 
rights of Cuba and the President tried to persuade Spain to grant it inde- 
pendence. 

With McKinley and the Republican Party coming into the Presidency 
in 1897, came the Dingley Tariff. In the Yukon, a rich deposit of gold 
was discovered and there was a rush of a multitude of gold hunters to this 
region, which lay on both sides of the Canadian-Alaskan frontier, and 
which created some friction between Canada and the United States. New 
York City, with all its suburbs, was consolidated into "Greater New York." 

The moment now came when, by a series of events, the United States 
was to stand before the nations of the earth as a great world power. The 
Hawaiian Islands were annexed to the United States in 1898. The con- 
tinued repressive policy of Spain in Cuba increased the filibustering expedi- 
tions from America to such an extent that the Government was compelled 
to police many of its ports to maintain neutrality. During this growing 
tension the American battleship Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor, 
carrying to their death over 250 of her crew. Congress issued an ulti- 
matum, demanding the withdrawal of Spain from Cuba. On her refusal. 
Congress declared war, on April 28, 1898. (See Chapter on "Great 
American Wars.") 

The last year of the Nineteenth Century was a crowning year for the 
triumphant republic. It saw the end of an old era — and the beginning of 
a new democracy. Great problems figuratively fought for decisive action. 

The new century marked the dawn of the new age — the golden age of 
American achievement. The story of the American people now moves 

123 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

rapidly to its grand climax, increasing in its intensity. The new century 
begins with the assassination of McKinley, and with Roosevelt taking the 
oath of office. Here we witness the rise of the American people to their 
glorious position as the greatest nation on earth. We follow Roosevelt 
and Taft and Wilson. We pass through great news events. We meet 
Pear)^ the discoverer of the North Pole, and other great men of achieve- 
ment. We see the building of the Panama Canal; we go to the Pacific 
Expositions. We begin to realize the vastness and greatness of our coun- 
try to-day; its tremendous richness, its natural resources, its great cities, its 
rivers and mountains; its scenic beauties; its great engineering achieve- 
ments; its magnificent buildings. 

The East, West, North and South are brought before the eyes of the 
people — mines, wheat fields, orchards, vineyards, fisheries, sheep and cattle 
ranches, the great animal and agricultural wealth of the nation. 

Let us glance quickly at the cinematographic record of events as 
they pass before us. Provincial America is now a world power — stretch- 
ing into the Orient. Hawaii, petitioning for annexation, was organized 
as a territory in 1900. Civil Government was established in the Philip- 
pines. Porto Rico also became a dependency, receiving a civil govern- 
ment. Cuba was allowed to set up a government of its own, with the 
understanding that it was to be under American supervision until such 
time as it was well able to care for itself. Disorders in China led to the 
killing of foreigners, Americans among them. Co-operating with England, 
Germany, and France, the President ordered warships and land forces to 
China. The allied forces put down rebellion and took the city of Pekin. 
A heavy indemnity was exacted of the Chinese by the countries involved, 
but the American Government wisely returned all sums over what it con- 
sidered just compensation — a deed which brought its reward in the good 
will of the Chinese and a good market for American goods. 

The Samoan Islands under the joint protection of Germany, Eng- 
land, and the United States were divided in 1900, the United States tak- 
ing Tutuila. McKinley again defeated Bryan for the Presidency on free 
silver with the new issue of Imperialism injected. A gigantic coal strike 
occurred in the Pennsylvania mines, seriously threatening all the Eastern 
cities with a hard coal famine for the winter. 

McKinley, the third President of the United States to be assassinated, 
was shot by an anarchist at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901, just after the 
President had finished his greatest speech. Roosevelt succeeded to the 
Presidency. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, superceding the Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty, was negotiated between England and the United States, giving 
the latter the sole right to build the Isthmian Canal and to be its owner 

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NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

and protector, while at the same time making it a natural waterway. The 
United States at first chose the Nicaragua route but later settled upon 
the route at Panama. Marconi, an English resident of Italian nativity, 
in experimenting with the Hertzian waves of electricity, discovered a prac- 
tical means to employ these waves to send messages without wires. 

Industrial Age at Daxvn of Twentieth Century 

THE industrial age now set in with tremendous momentum — a 
season of unprecedented prosperity began. Great numbers of 
"trusts" were organized under the favorable laws of New Jersey, 
reaching their tentacles over the whole country. Another gigantic coal 
strike in Pennsylvania occurred in 1902. President Roosevelt persuaded 
the mine owners and the miners to arbitrate the dispute. It was settled on 
terms largely in favor of the miners. Funds from the sale of public lands 
were appropriated for the irrigation of Western lands and huge dams and 
reservoirs were constructed in Colorado and other neighboring States. 
Morgan organized the great "shipping trust" of freight lines across the At- 
lantic. Marconi came to America and sent a wireless message across the 
ocean to Europe. 

Great developments require constant readjustments. With the rise 
of the powerful combinations of capital the Elkins Anti-Rebate Bill was 
passed in 1903, increasing the power of the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion over shippers. A large number of railroads were brought under the 
scrutiny of the courts. A low tariff between Cuba and the United States 
was adopted. The boundary of Southern Alaska was fixed by a court of 
joint arbitration. The United States and Colombia had not succeeded in 
negotiating a treaty, for the right of way of the Panama Canal, when a 
revolution broke out on the Isthmus of Panama, setting up a separate 
government. President Roosevelt recognized the new republic, nego- 
tiated a treaty with it instead of Colombia, and thus established the Canal 
Zone. Congress created the Department of Commerce and Labor, and 
gave it power to investigate the organization and general management 
of any corporation other than railroads engaged in interstate commerce. 
The investigations resulted in numerous suits brought by the Govern- 
ment against "trusts." The Government brought suit against the North- 
ern Securities Company on the ground that it was an organization whose 
acts were in restraint of interstate commerce, and the United States Su- 
preme Court sustained the Government. The court also decided that the 
"Beef Trust" was a combination that restrained interstate trade. 

The new regime was in full operation. Roosevelt was elected Pres- 
ident by the largest majority ever cast, over two million votes. The third 

127 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

International Exposition on American soil was held in St. Louis in 1904 
to celebrate the Centenary of the Louisiana Purchase. The United States 
took charge of the custom houses of San Domingo in 1905 in order to 
manage the country's foreign indebtedness. President Roosevelt acted as 
mediator in the Russo-Japanese War, and the two nations signed a treaty 
of Peace at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A number of great life in- 
surance companies of New York were investigated by a legislative com- 
mittee and reorganized to meet the demands of the new economic refor- 
mation. 

World power brought to America larger responsibilities. General 
Wood pacified the "Moros" in the Philippines in 1906. Cuba became 
turbulent, and the United States resumed the military occupation of the 
island. Secretary of State Root visited South America as a delegate to 
the Pan American Congress, cementing friendship with America's south- 
ern neighbors. Congress voted to construct a lock canal across the Isthmus 
of Panama. The Interstate Commerce Commission was authorized to fix 
a minimum rate for the transportation of certain articles. Congress passed 
a Pure Food Law, forbidding the sale of impure foods in interstate trade 
and requiring the manufacturers of patent drugs to name all ingredients 
that might be considered injurious. This law supplemented the State laws 
against impure foods. 

The economic readjustments created a financial disturbance in 1907. 
Georgia and Alabama voted for State prohibition and the movement 
spread to Kentucky and other States. Judge Landis, of the United States 
Circuit Court, in Chicago, imposed a fine of $29,240,000 on the Stand- 
ard Oil Company, the biggest fine ever imposed by a court. John D. 
Rockefeller gave $32,000,000 to continue the work of the General Edu- 
cation Board. 

The American Navy, under the command of Admiral Evans, sailed 
from Hampton Roads in 1908 for a cruise around the world, the most 
splendid armada that ever circled the globe. President Roosevelt, while 
refusing to be a candidate again for the Presidency, declared for Secre- 
tary Taft, who was elected. The National Civic Federation, with repre- 
sentatives of both Capital and Labor, met in New York. Congress organ- 
ized the Inland Waterways Commission; the Monetary Commission or- 
ganized under Vreeland-Aldrich Currency began its session in Washington. 
The United States withdrew from Cuba and the island government was re- 
stored in 1909. The Payne-Aldrich Tariff was passed. The United 
States and Great Britain submitted to the Hague Tribunal a dispute over 
fisheries. 

Then came the great discovery — on April 9th, 1909, Lieutenant 

128 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Peary, who had spent twenty years and a half million dollars in Arctic 
Expeditions, stood on the apex of this globe at its North Pole — and planted 
the American flag. The Government created a postal savings bank to 
encourage thrift by inducing the people to make small deposits. The 
governors of the various States met in Washington and organized the 
House of Governors as a clearing house for the discussion of State legis- 
lation. So great had grown the volume of litigation from the work of 
the Interstate Commerce Commission that the Court of Commerce was 
created to take care of it and the powers of the Commission were increased 
so that it could investigate a carrier without first having received a com- 
plaint. The jurist, Charles E. Hughes, who had made a unique record 
as reform Governor of New York, accepted a place on the bench of the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

Gigantic Growth of Nation Requires Economic Readjustments 

THE wonderful growth of the country caused economic inequalities. 
With such rapid progress it was hardly to be expected that all so- 
cial factions should keep pace. It is interesting to note, however, 
that no single interest is able long to maintain itself at the expense of 
the others. It is especially to be witnessed that whenever danger arises, 
then democracy asserts its power and assumes control. The trusts had 
scarcely reached a state of organization when they were levelled by the 
demand of the populace. The voice of the multitude arises and the strong 
arm of democracy strikes whenever and wherever its welfare is threat- 
ened. This was proved many times in these early years of the Twentieth 
Century. The increase in the cost of living created much dissatisfaction 
and was charged against the corporations. The trusts and the Payne- 
Aldrich Tariff were severely blamed. There was also much unrest in 
labor circles. On many of the great railroads demands were made for 
higher wages. Several systems granted a considerable increase. The 
population of the country had grown 44 per cent, in twenty years, while 
the expenditures of the Federal Government had increased 170 per cent. 
In the midst of this agitation the Supreme Court ordered the rehearing 
of the suits against the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trusts. Woman Suf- 
frage was adopted in the State of Washington. This new addition to 
woman suffrage gave the movement a new momenjtum and plans for the 
organizing of campaigns were made in the Eastern States. 

The year 1910 had its full share of strikes throughout the country, 
and the great burden of the people was the high cost of living. The 
Democrats charged it to the Payne-Aldrich Tariff; the Republicans at- 
tributed it to greatly increased production of gold; and many economists 

129 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

blamed it on the increasing luxuries of the people, or "the cost of high 
living." The eleventh census of the United States showed that there 
were in the continental United States 91,972,226 people as against 75,- 
994,596 in 1900. About 45 per cent, of the population were urban. In 
the older States there was a relative decline of rural population. 

Economic readjustment stirred the business world. Congress passed 
a reciprocity bill with Canada in 1911, but the Dominion rejected it. 
The Supreme Court ordered the Standard Oil Company, which controlled 
sixty-five companies, to dissolve within six months. But in doing so the 
court reassured business that reasonable restraint was not illegal. Two 
weeks later the court ordered the American Tobacco Trust to dissolve 
within six months and directed the lower court to devise some way for re- 
arrangement. The Steel Trust was also investigated but as its monopoly 
had decreased from 60 to 50 per cent, in control of its ore output, it was 
not then prosecuted. 

Arizona and New Mexico, the last remaining territories in the con- 
tinental United States, were admitted to Statehood; there were now forty- 
eight stars on the flag of the republic. Congress passed a resolution to be 
submitted to the States for ratification, amending the Constitution so that 
United States Senators could be elected by popular vote. The Amend- 
ment was ratified by the States two years later. 

Trusts were now collapsing like a house of cards in 191 1. The Wire 
Trust dissolved itself; the Electric Trust was dissolved. The Steel Trust 
announced its intention to cancel its lease on its northern lands and to re- 
duce rates on its railroads, but notwithstanding this concession the Gov- 
ernment brought suit against this trust. The Standard Oil and the To- 
bacco Trusts presented plans for reorganization and they were accepted. 
The treaty with America's old historic friend, Russia, was abrogated be- 
cause Russia had refused to admit naturalized American Jews who had 
left the Empire without complying with the regulations as to expatriation. 
The Supreme Court legalized the corporation tax and the Federal Reserva- 
tion of forests without the consent of the States containing the forests. 
The Woman's Rights movement captured California by having a suffrage 
clause put into the State's Constitution and giving them also the right to be- 
come jurors. The women had now practically conquered their cause in the 
Far West and they turned their faces to the East with onward wills. 

On the morning of April 16th, 1912, the whole world was startled 
by the greatest steamship tragedy since the American invention revolu- 
tionized the seas — the sinking of the giant White Star Liner Titanic on 
her maiden voyage, by striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic on the 
night preceding at about 1 1 o'clock. Over two thousand persons perished, 

130 



..ii*"Vy;.t ■...*** «S^^S4:;',:i3 




NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

a large portion of whom were Americans. A lunatic, named Shrank, shot 
Roosevelt in Milwaukee, but the wound did not prove serious. Wilson 
was elected President. The Supreme Court ordered the Union Pacific to 
discontinue its control over the Southern Pacific, which it had acquired 
through the "Harriman Merger." The Pujo Congressional Committee 
investigated the "Money Trust." The Committee reported that there were 
evidences of a money trust, that is, the concentration of capital in the 
hands of a small group of great bankers, and proposed legislation for clear- 
ing houses and banks. Michigan, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona were 
added to the States granting suffrage to women, making in all ten States. 
A strike that attracted unusual interest occurred among the 14,000 Slavs 
and Italians in the woolen mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts. The strike 
had been caused by a reduction of wages on account of shortening hours 
of labor by State legislation. It was organized by "Industrial Workers 
of the World" and grew so violent that the State militia had to be called 
out. There was bloodshed, but the dispute was finally settled in favor of 
the strikers. This was the most important of a number of strikes in the 
country, all mainly caused by the high cost of living. 

Triumph of 'Democracy and Financial Reconstruction 

THE trend of democracy gathered momentum. The United States 
Supreme Court declared illegal the Patten pool in cotton as a re- 
straint of trade under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law in 1913. The 
Cash Register Company was adjudged as doing business in restraint of 
trade by a Federal Court; on appeal to the higher court this decision 
was reversed. The Constitutional Amendment, levying an income tax, 
was ratified by the States. President Wilson called Congress in special 
session to pass a tariff and other legislation. The United States with- 
drew from participation in what was called the Six Power Loan in China. 
The California Legislature passed a law prohibiting aliens ineligible to 
citizenship from owning land in the State. The Japanese ambassador 
protested that the act violated the treaty of 1911, but this treaty gave the 
Japanese the right only to lease land and own or lease buildings but did 
not specify agricultural lands. Secretary Bryan hastened to California 
and made a speech before the legislature with a view to preventing the 
passage of the bill or of modifying the legislation, if possible. The fiftieth 
anniversary^ of the Battle of Gettysburg was celebrated on July 4th, 1913, 
the President addressing 55,000 Union and Confederate War Veterans en- 
camped on the ground. 

The economic revolution in Mexico threatened the peace of the 
United States. In the revolt against Madero's government the Mexican 

133 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

executive was murdered. General Huerta seized the office and another 
revolution was started in the North to depose him. President Wilson 
sent Ex-Governor John Lind, of Minnesota, as an envoy to Huerta to re- 
quest him to resign from the Presidency and to convene an election at the 
earliest possible moment at which Huerta himself should not be a candi- 
date. President Wilson believed that Huerta had usurped the office, pos- 
sibly by complicity in the assassination of Madero, and refused to recog- 
nize him as the constitutional President of Mexico. Huerta refused to 
accede to the President's wishes and the Mexican War continued. 

Radical readjustments in our domestic affairs now took place. The 
Underwood Tariff was passed, greatly reducing the custom duties. The 
Currency Bill was passed, creating a Federal Reserve system of banking 
with twelve reserve banks situated in twelve cities of the United States. 
Michigan adopted the Initiative and Referendum. Pennsylvania passed 
a eugenic marriage law, requiring candidates for matrimony to present cer- 
tificates of health from physicians. Illinois adopted woman suffrage to 
the limit of its constitution. The "Industrial Workers of the World" en- 
gineered another serious strike among the employees of the textile mills 
in Paterson, New Jersey. 

American finance was now undergoing a complete reorganization. As 
a result of the report of the Pujo Committee, members of the great banking 
house of J. P. Morgan and Co. voluntarily resigned from thirty out of 
thirty-nine directorships in 1914. Morgan retired from the directorship 
of the New York Central Railroad and the Western Union Telegraph 
Company, while his partners retired from the United States Steel Corpor- 
ation and the Westinghouse Electric Company. Other bankers followed 
the Morgan example. 

World affairs seemed to concentrate in America. The President, 
deeming that there was no constitutional government in Mexico, removed 
the embargo on arms to aid the insurgents to drive Huerta from his of- 
fice. England protested against the Canal Toll Bill, exempting American 
coastwise shipping from paying tolls in the passage through the Panama 
Canal. President Wilson went before Congress with a message in which 
he declared that the nation was "too big and powerful and self-respect- 
ing" to put a strained interpretation on its promises, and the bill was re- 
pealed. 

A party of American blue jackets from Admiral Mayo's fleet at Tam- 
pico, Mexico, while ashore to obtain petrol, was arrested by the authorities 
of the Huerta Government. The Americans were soon released, but the 
Admiral demanded that the Huerta Government apologize by firing a sa- 
lute of twenty-one guns to the American flag. Huerta replied that he 

134 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

would comply if the Mexican flag should be hoisted with the American 
flag and both flags be saluted together. The Washington Government 
objected on the ground that this would amount to a recognition of the 
Huerta Government. President Wilson laid the matter before Congress 
and asked its authority to use the military and naval forces in Mexico 
in such a manner as to enforce the dignity of the United States. But be- 
fore this authority was granted by Congress, Admiral Fletcher, with a 
fleet, was dispatched to Vera Cruz to seize the custom house. The Ad- 
miral demanded the surrender of the town, and on being refused, he landed 
a battalion of marines, who were fired on by snipers. The ship bombarded 
the barracks and the naval academy, while the marines took possession 
of Vera Cruz. Commissioners from Huerta's Government met the ambas- 
sadors to America from Brazil, Argentina and Chile, with representatives 
from the United States Government at a conference at Niagara Falls. The 
insurgents were invited to send representatives to this conference but they 
did not officially do so. The conference hastened the fall of Huerta by 
demonstrating to him that the stable South American republics were op- 
posed to his regime. Huerta fled from Mexico and sailed for Spain. 

The period of financial reconstruction, caused by overgrowth of huge 
industries, continued. Interlocking directorships were forbidden. The 
great railroad system in New England — New York, New Haven and Hart- 
ford — underwent reorganization. 

World Problems Culminate in World War 

THE culmination of world problems came with the outbreak of the 
Great War in Europe in 1914. A tremendous financial crisis in 
America was averted by quick action. An immense amount of 
stock, both domestic and foreign, would be thrown on the market the 
next day, creating a panic by taking all the gold out of the country. The 
governors of the New York Stock Exchange decided not to open the mar- 
ket and run this great risk. For nearly six months the Exchange remained 
closed from fear of a deluge of stocks. The whole business world of 
America trembled under the great shock. Commerce piled up on the 
wharves of New York, Boston, Baltimore, and other eastern cities, for 
the whole transatlantic shipping trade had become demoralized. The 
Mauritania and the Cedric, under temporary precaution, put into Halifax. 
The Kr on princes sin Cecilie, with $10,000,000 gold for London, fled back 
across the Atlantic under a wireless message from Berlin and ran into 
Bar Harbor, Maine. Emergency currency for $500,000,000 was ordered 
printed for any sudden emergency that might arise. Great numbers of 
Americans were caught in the European War Zone, and for nearly a month 

135 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

a frantic cry for help to get them home rang across the Atlantic. The 
American Governrnent sent $250,000 in gold and two or three ships to res- 
rue these stranded travellers. 

President Wilson at once rendered his services for meditation to the 
warring nations and issued a proclamation of strict neutrality. The Amer- 
ican Red Cross issued a call for money to prevent the Belgiums from starv- 
ing and the response was both instant and generous, over $20,000,000 in 
American food and clothing reaching the destitute before the New Year. 
Secretary Bryan secured signatories to twenty-three arbitration treaties 
and twelve peace commissions, giving a year of grace for discussion of an 
issue between two nations before either should force the issue. Congress 
passed the Trade Commission Act, creating a tribunal to arbitrate com- 
mercial disputes, and the Clayton Anti-Trust Bill, preventing interlock- 
ing directorship. An emergency war taxation bill producing $100,000,- 
000 was passed. No sooner had the war broken out in Europe than a 
campaign for and against armaments was started in the United States. 

The eventful year of 1914 closed with complex problems. The 
Miners' Union called out 11,000 miners because the owners had refused 
their demands, which included freedom to buy provisions and supplies 
when they pleased, to choose their own doctors, the right to elect their own 
chief weigher. President Wilson appealed to both sides to try to end 
the strike and it was finally settled by a commission. The Cape Cod 
Canal, connecting Buzzard's Bay with Barnstable and dispensing with the 
long sea route around Cape Cod between Boston and New York, was 
opened; it cost $12,000,000. The Panama Canal was unofficially opened 
to general traffic. The first vessel, steaming through the canal, was the 
United States vessel Ancon^ 6,000 tons, at the head of a long fleet of 
steamers. 

America — The Hope of the Peoples of the Earth 

t I AHE remarkable year of 1915 was ushered in with world war, 
I economic reconstruction, and a general assay of civilization. It 
-■- was announced that a group of American bankers had made a loan 
of $15,000,000 to Argentina. This fact is significant, as it is the first 
time that an American banking institution has ever loaned money to a 
South American country. It indicates the practical effort that is now be- 
ing made to cement friendship and trade relations with Latin-America. 
President Wilson, in an address in Washington, laid down the follow- 
ing principles for the conduct of business : First — publicity of operation ; 
second, full equivalent for the money; third, conscience in transactions; 
fourth, spirit of service. The creation in the United States in time of 

136 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE 

peace of the same kind of united spirit which moves nations during wars 
was advocated by the President. North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota 
all abolished capital punishment. More than six hundred business or- 
ganizations were represented at the meeting of the American Chamber of 
Commerce in Washington. Every State in the Union and all the island 
dependencies sent delegates to the greatest commercial congress ever as- 
sembled. The legislatures of Alabama, Iowa, California and Pennsyl- 
vania passed laws prohibiting child labor. 

The European War drew America dangerously near the maelstrom. 
The contraband question loomed large on the horizon. Copper and brass 
sent from New York to Germany was seized at Copenhagen. So many 
steamers with American cargoes were held up by English warships that 
the United States determined to furnish inspectors to certify cargoes. 
An arrangement was made between Germany and Austria on the one hand, 
and Great Britain on the other, for American representatives to inspect 
war prisons. The United States sent notes to both Great Britain and 
Germany concerning the war zone in the North Sea and around the British 
Isles. President Wilson advised the German Government that the Amer- 
ican Government would hold it responsible for any loss of American prop- 
erty or lives. In both notes it was suggested that Great Britain and Ger- 
many restrict use of mines, and abandon submarine attacks on merchant 
vessels. 

The beginning of 1915 found the Government of Mexico in the hands 
of two rival factions. Many thousands of non-combatants were reported 
as starving. President Wilson informed General Carranza that unless 
there was an improvement in conditions with respect to foreigners in 
Mexican territory under his control, it might be necessary for the Amer- 
ican Government to obtain the desired protection. The Panama Pacific 
Exposition was opened in San Francisco, forty-five foreign nations and 
forty-three States and Territories sent exhibits. A great American indus- 
try, the Ford Motor Company, of Detroit, Michigan, shared $10,000,- 
000 with its 20,000 employees at its Detroit and branch factories, giv- 
ing an exhibition of the workings of the biggest profit-sharing scheme 
organized in America. Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Arkansas, Oregon, 
and Utah all joined the state-wide prohibition States. The Dalles-Celilo 
Canal, opening the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean to Lewiston, 
Idaho — 475 miles — was finished after ten years' work at a cost of nearly 
$5,000,000 by the Federal Government. 

The European War began to write many great events into the pages 
of American history. The most serious and dramatic of them all was the 
destruction of the Cunard Liner, Lusitania, off the coast of Ireland, by 

139 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

a torpedo fired from a German submarine without warning; 1,365 lives 
were lost out of a total of 2,160 aboard the steamer. The number of 
Americans who died was placed at 107. Many of those who perished 
were women and children. No event of the war had so shocked the civ- 
ized world. Before the steamer sailed from New York, the German 
Embassy at Washington had assumed the task of warning Americans not 
to go aboard of the steamer. After all the facts relating to the sinking 
of the Lusitania had been ascertained, and when the excitement had some- 
what receded, President Wilson addressed a note to the German Govern- 
ment warning it that the American Government would expect it to dis- 
avow the act, make reparation for it, and promise to stop the destruction 
of non-combatants on passenger ships in the war zone. Secretary of 
State Bryan resigned from the cabinet, giving as his reason his pledge to 
the "peace at any cost" policy. For months the controversy continued, 
the German submarines in the meantime sinking other ships, with the loss 
of American lives. Among other things the controversy had the effect of 
emphasizing the cleavage between the faction for preparedness for war and 
the faction for peace. President Wilson stood by his strict neutrality pol- 
icy and a long series of diplomatic negotiations resulted. 

It is at this point that this rapid survey of more than four hundred 
years of American civilization is brought to a close. Later events must 
require adjudication before they have reached the state of finality which ad- 
mits them to permanent historical record. An analysis of the narrative, 
through which we have just passed, will give the reader a broad comprehen- 
sion at least, and perhaps a realization of the purpose and trend of Ameri- 
can progress. It depicts the noble struggle that it is making against all 
obstacles — the courage and sacrifice with which it faces every problem. 
Moreover, it proves overwhelmingly that if at times the spirit of democracy 
seems to be stifled, it arouses itself to herculean strength whenever the re- 
public seems endangered. 

The great story of the American people is now rising to its grand 
climax. We stand at the gateways to the New World (the harbors of 
New York and San Francisco) and watch the people of all nations flock- 
ing into the country. Here we see groups of men, women, and children 
of all nationalities who have come to America to cast their lots in the fu- 
ture of this vast land of opportunity — Germans, Italians, Russians, Chi- 
nese, Africans, Hindoos — ^peoples of every race and climate from all cor- 
ners of the earth — a great moving, throbbing panorama of human life. 
The great procession of men and events comes to its close with the peoples 
of the earth gathering for protection under the American flag — the flag of 
Triumphant Democracy ! 

140 



GOVERNMENT 
OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal ; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; 
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

— Declaration of Independence. 



THE American people are working out the problem of the ages — 
the problem of setting up before the world a complete reali- 
zation of the long-sought ideal of "government of the people, 
by the people, for the people." The Mosaic laws proclaimed 
it; Athens attempted it before the dawn of the Christian era; Rome de- 
clared itself a republic. There were flourishing republics in Italy in the 
Middle Ages. But it has remained for America to demonstrate the per- 
manency and practicability of this great principle. All preceding attempts 
failed. 

The future of the American nation is with the people — they hold its 
destiny in the hollow of their hands. We have proclaimed to the world 
the divine right of the people to govern themselves. We have further 
declared that "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of 
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to in- 
stitute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and 
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to 
effect their safety and happiness." 

This declaration places upon every American a tremendous respon- 
sibility — a moral responsibility greater than has ever before been borne 
by men. For, if this rich inheritance of Liberty is to be bequeathed by 
every American to his children as a priceless heritage, it must be preserved 
by each individual. And this means allegiance to the sacred principles set 
forth in the Declaration of Independence and to the doctrines established 
in the Constitution of the United States — the most perfect instrument 
that human intellect and human justice have yet been able to conceive. 

Burke in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France" sounded a 
warning when he exclaimed : "What is Liberty without wisdom and with- 
out virtue^ It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice 
and madness, without tuition or restraint." It was Madame Roland who 
cried: "O Liberty I Liberty I how many crimes are committed in thy 

141 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

name I" And Polybius warned that "government may take the fairest of 
names, but the worst of realities — mob rule." 

On the integrity of self-government, therefore, the very existence of 
the republic depends. It rests on the maintenance of the integrity of the 
laws made by the people and a faithful adherence to the rule of the ma- 
jority, for "where law ends — tyranny begins." 

Self-government is a process of slow growth, guided by wisdom, and 
held in restraint from passions and impatience. It must mold itself 
wisely into the ever-changing forms of social evolution, and must adapt 
itself to the needs of the largest number of people — working out con- 
scientiously the fullest possible measure of justice. Its greatest danger 
is in the impatience of the minority; its greatest enemy is anarchy; and its 
arch-traitor is mob violence. "Irresponsible government spells ruin." 

It is with this borne fully in mind that we will give a brief discussion 
of the system under which we are endeavoring to work out the problem 
of democracy in the United States. It would be folly to claim that we 
have a perfect system. Alas, we find too often that we are far from our 
ideals — far from economic justice — but we do know that we have the firm 
foundation upon which to build the instrument with which to work, and 
the machinery of government, which, if properly administered, weighs jus- 
tice in the scales more accurately than any other system that the genius 
of man has been able to devise. Let us examine this machinery : 

How the American Government Is Operated 

THE American Government is that of a union of forty-eight States 
all working for a common purpose — liberty, justice, equality. It 
is a democratic republic. The chief instrument of government is 
a written constitution. This working agreement was ratified by eleven of 
the thirteen original colonies and became operative on March 4, 1 789. In 
this document, and in the traditions which have arisen through interpre- 
tating it, are to be found the results of the political wisdom and experience 
of the American colonists, together with much of the political philosophy 
which was current at the end of the Eighteenth Century. Inasmuch as 
each of the forty-eight States is to a great degree self-governing, it is neces- 
sary, in making a study of the American Government, to examine their 
general qualities and interrelations in addition to those of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. 

The Constitution provides that there shall be three branches of the 
Federal Government. These are the executive^ the legislative, and the 
judiciary. These three branches check and balance each other, thereby 
preventing the assumption of all power by any one of them and insuring 

142 




HIGHEST LEGISLATIVE BODY IN THE RErUBLIC— This is a glimpse of the United States 

Senate at the Xational Capital — This photograph of the empty chamber is 

the only picture that the officials of the Senate will allow. 




HELL IN INDEI'EXDENCE HALL — Famous bell that rang out the joyful tidinj 
Declaration of Independence in July, 177G — When the British approached 
I'hiladelphia the bell was taken down by the Patriots. 



of tlie 




SIGNING OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE— Here we witness that epoch-making moment on July 
4th, 1776, when a new nation was born — This document written by Jefferson, was signed in Indepen- 
dence Hall, in rhiladelphia, by the delegates from the colonies, on August 2, 1776. 




HISTORIC AMERICAN TAINTING BY TRUMBULL — Original painted for rotunda of National Capitol — Tl)e 
canvas portrays life-like portraits of 48 signer*— The five men standing in front of table are Adams, 

Sherman, Livingstone, Jefferson, Franklin. 



GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the democratic form of the Government. Washington is the capital of the 
nation. 

How the People Elect the President 

The Executive Branch of the Government is headed by a president 
whose term of office is four years. There is no constitutional limitation 
to the number of terms which one man may enjoy. He must, according to 
the Constitution, be a native-born American, a resident of the country for 
at least fourteen years, and must be at least thirty-five years old. He re- 
ceives a salary of $75,000 and additional allowances.* The Presidency 
is an elective office; the candidates for it are nominated by the national 
conventions of their respective parties. On the same tickets are found the 
men who are candidates for the office of Vice-president, the legal successor 
of the President should he leave office before his term has expired. 

These two officers are not directly elected by the voters of the country, 
for, according to the Constitution, in each State the voters choose a num- 
ber of electors which shall be equal to the number of Senators plus the num- 
bers of representatives to which that State is entitled in Congress. These 
electors are not bound by law or the Constitution to vote for the candidates 
coming from their own parties, but tradition has brought into existence an 
iron rule which makes them do so. Therefore a party which secures a 
plurality of the votes in a State is entitled to the votes of all the electors for 
that State for President and Vice-President; and the party that wins in so 
many States as to insure control, through a majority, of the Electoral Col- 
lege, as the body of electors is called, is certain of having its nominees for 
the two offices elected. It may thus come about that a President is elected 
by a majority of the electors, though but a minority of the votes cast 
throughout the country were for the electors who in turn voted for him. 
Qualifications for voters are determined by the States and will be considered 
later. 

Duties of the President of the United States 

A NEWLY elected President takes his oath of office, administered by 
the Chief Justice of the United States, and immediately, by the 
terms of the Constitution, becomes responsible for the enforce- 
ment of the provisions of the Constitution, the laws and treaties of the 
United States and the decisions pronounced by the Courts of the Federal 
Government. He has the power to appoint to administrative offices two 
groups of incumbents — those who hold important positions, such as heads 
of departments, bureaus and commissions, and those who hold inferior of- 

* In 1909 the total cost to the nation for the executive was $329,420. 

147 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

fices. The former appointments need the ratification of the Senate; the 
latter are in the hands of the President alone. He has the power to remove 
men in either group without consent of the Senate. 

The President is Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, but the 
right to declare war is not in his hands. The conduct of the nation's for- 
eign affairs is in his control; he appoints the representatives of the nation 
in foreign countries (with the consent of the Senate), he can make treaties 
(with the concurrence of two- thirds of the Senate), he receives the repre- 
sentatives of foreign powers, he may order the navy to foreign ports even 
at the risk of bringing on war, and he may move the army to foreign bor- 
ders at the same risk. Except in cases of impeachment, he may grant re- 
prieves and pardons to those who have been convicted by Federal (not 
State) courts, and, though this power enables him to reverse completely the 
action of a Federal court, its abuse is prevented by his voluntary reliance 
on the opinions of others in dealing with such cases. 

The Constitution makes it mandatory for the President to inform Con- 
gress, from time to time, as to the state of the nation. Such messages, fol- 
lowing a precedent set by Washington, were formally written papers read 
before the legislative body by a clerk, but President Wilson broke that 
precedent in delivering his first message by reading it to Congress in per- 
son. Congress is not bound to carry out any recommendations which his 
message contains, but it hears them with respect and, when the majorities 
of the legislators in both houses of Congress are of the same party as the 
President, it usually happens that his recommendations find their way to 
the statute-books. On the other hand, a bill passed by Congress does not 
reach the statute-books unless signed by the President, and by the power 
of veto he wields a great influence. But Congress by a two-thirds vote 
of both houses can make a bill law in spite of his veto. A bill coming 
to the President for his signature becomes law without his signature if he 
fails to return it to Congress within ten days after receiving it. Sundays 
are excepted in this count. 

Certain privileges and rights belong to the President; no court can 
bring him before it for any offense, no crime he may commit can cause his 
arrest, and, even when impeached, no limitation may be placed upon his 
liberty until sentence has been pronounced upon him. 

How the President Selects His Cabinet 

NOT all of the work connected with the executive branch of the 
Government can be attended to by the President alone, con- 
sequently it is necessary to maintain certain departments, bureaus, 
and commissions to carry it on. These departments in order of their im- 

148 



GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

portance are those of State, Treasury, War, Justice, Post-Office, Navy, 
Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor. The heads of these depart- 
ments connected with the executive branch form the President's Cabinet, 
and, though the Constitution makes no provisions for these, it assumes their 
existence. The Cabinet officers are appointees of the President and may 
be removed at his discretion. Their duties are laid down by enactments 
of Congress, and for these duties they are responsible to the President. 
They enjoy large appointive powers, subject to the operations of a Civil 
Service law; they may promulgate regulations, which must be consistent 
with law; and they decide with finality on cases appealed from the officials 
beneath them. On the other hand, they must prepare annual reports on 
their respective department for Congress. Their other relations with the 
legislative branch of the Government are less definite. They cannot be 
members of Congress, but there is no Constitutional provision preventing 
them from sitting and speaking there. They influence legislative action 
by conferring with Congressional committees and by appearing before them, 
and often draft in their entirety bills which become law. 

The Cabinet as a collective body has no existence in legal enactment 
nor has it any powers ordained by law. Custom regulates it to a remark- 
able degree. Its meetings are stated and are ordered by the President. 
Usually they are secret, even to the extent of having no record of their 
transactions placed on record. The President, though he consults his Cab- 
inet for advice and discusses with it matters of importance, is in no way 
bound to observe its recommendations, and not infrequently acts in direct 
opposition to them. 

How Members of the House and Senators Are Elected 

THE legislative branch of the Government is known as Congress and 
consists of a House of Representatives, coming from the various 
States in proportion to their respective populations, and a Senate 
consisting of two members from each of the States. The members of the 
House of Representatives must be men who have been citizens of the coun- 
try for at least seven years ; they must be at least twenty-five years old and 
must reside in the States which they represent. They may not hold other 
office under the Federal Government, and by provision of State laws can- 
not, except in rare instances, hold office under State governments. All but 
this last-named qualification are to be found in the Federal Constitution; 
in addition, either house may bar members on certain grounds. 

Each member of the lower House represents a single Congressional 
district, which according to statute must be "contiguous and compact ter- 
ritory" ; no district may have more than one representative. 

149 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Each Representative is elected for a term of two years and receives 
a salary of $7,500. The electoral machinery by which a member becomes 
a nominee and an incumbent for the office of Representative is a matter 
controlled by the States, but their prescriptions may be altered by Congress. 
An act of Congress provides that they must be elected by ballot on the 
Tuesday following the first Monday in November, though a few States 
are exempted from this provision relating to the date. Both houses of Con- 
gress through committees judge of the elections and qualifications of their 
members and decide the issue where contested elections exist. 

The Constitution specifically determines the number of Senators — two 
from each State, and no State is to be deprived of equal representation in 
the Senate without its own consent. The qualifications of Senators are a 
minimum age of thirty years, citizenship for nine years, and residence in 
the States which they represent. 

According to the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, Sena- 
tors are elected by the electorates in each State instead of by the State legis- 
lative bodies, as heretofore. Each Senator is elected for a term of six 
years, at a salary of $7,500 a year; and the Constitution provides that one- 
third of the total number of Senators shall retire every two years. 

The Constitution also provides for certain privileges to be enjoyed 
by members of Congress. The first of these is monetary allowance for sec- 
retaries and other assistants and for traveling expenses in addition to their 
salaries. They are free from arrest, during attendance at Washington, for 
all crimes except treason, felony, and breach of the peace. They may at 
no place be held responsible for utterance during debate in the Congres- 
sional chambers. Though the elections of its officers, the attendance of 
its members, and its methods of procedure are matters left in the hands of 
each house, the Constitution provides that the Vice-President shall be the 
presiding officer in the Senate, that each house must keep a journal, that a 
two-third vote is necessary to expel a member from either house, and that 
record of vote, under certain circumstances, must be taken by roll-call. A 
quorum in either house consists of a majority of its members. 

Hozv Congress Makes Our Laws 

THE Constitution provides that Congress meet annually, the open- 
ing day being the first Monday in December. There are two an- 
nual sessions of each house. The President may call special ses- 
sions at his own discretion. The powers of Congress are only those which 
are named in the Constitution. It controls the matter of taxation raised 
to pay the debts of the Federal Government, for the defense of the coun- 
try and for its welfare. Armies and navies may be raised and maintained 

150 




DEFENCE OP FORT MOULTRIE IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION — ^Ilere the South Caroliuians 

repulsed the English fleet and turned back the Expedition of Sir Henry Clinton 

for the subjugation of the South — June -8, 1776. 




SIEGE OF CHARLESTON IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION — This historic city in South Carolina 

heroically held off the British fleet in 1776 — Forced to surrender to British, 

after a noble defence, in 1779, it was pillaged. 



GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

by it; it may declare war, regulate commerce, establish post-offices and 
post-roads, authorize standards of weights and measures, provide for pat- 
ents and copyrights, and promulgate uniform laws on bankruptcy. 

Over foreign affairs Congress has slight control. But in the matter of 
the country's monetary system its control is exclusive. It has limited power 
in defining crimes against Federal laws and providing punishment there- 
for; the crime of treason is defined unalterably by clauses in the Constitu- 
tion. The rules and regulations for the government of the District of Co- 
lumbia, in which Washington is located, and for the government of terri- 
tories and property belonging to the United States is entirely in its hands ; 
it has the right to admit new States into the Union and can make what ar- 
rangements it sees fit for the process of admission. Through its control 
of finances and the fixation of salaries and allowances it can to a certain 
extent wield an influence over the executive branch of the Government via 
the executive departments, bureaus and commissions; and in a similar man- 
ner it wields a control over the judiciary branch. Its power of removing 
Federal officers extends even to the right of impeaching the President — a 
right which it has exercised only once. When the President is impeached, 
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the presiding officer, and the Sen- 
ate acts as the high court. The Constitution provides that impeachment 
may be brought only in cases of treason, bribery, and high crimes and mis- 
demeanors. 

The manner in which Congress goes about its work is due to the fact 
that two great political parties seek the control of the Government. The 
party having a majority in either house controls the actions of that house, 
this action being determined by a caucus of the members of the party in a 
majority. The leading member of the party in majority becomes the pre- 
siding officer (Speaker) of the Representatives, and the leader of the mi- 
nority becomes the floor leader of the party in opposition. The rules of 
the two houses differ. 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is clothed with wide 
powers in order that he may prevent "filibustering" — the delaying of action 
by the party in opposition. A Representative may speak no more than one 
hour in a given debate and he may not speak more than once during that 
debate. But there is no time limit on the speech-making of the Senators. 

The greater part of the business in each house is attended to by com- 
mittees. There are over fifty such in each house ; the more important ones 
in the lower house are those of Appropriations, Commerce, Finance, For- 
eign Relations, Interstate Commerce, Judiciary, Military Affairs, Naval 
Affairs, Public Expenditures, and Rules. In the Senate the more impor- 
tant ones are those of Appropriations, Banking and Currency, Foreign Af- 

153 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

fairs, Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Judiciary, Military Affairs, Naval 
Affairs, Rivers and Harbors, Rules, and Ways and Means. Important and 
unimportant bills are considered by these committees and it is at their meet- 
ing that the real legislative work of the nation is done. When a member 
introduces a bill — and this is the privilege of every member in either house 
— it is referred to the committee which would naturally be interested in it. 
This committee may pass favorably upon it, whereon it is voted on by the 
house in which it is introduced. The committee may alter it, or it may 
"kill it." In the last case it never comes up for debate by the house. 

A bill favorably reported on by committee and passed by one house 
then goes to the other house for its approval. Here it again goes through 
the hands of the proper committee before being finally considered by the 
house itself. The bill may be altered by the second house or it may be 
rejected by it. Conferences between members of both houses — extra- 
cameral and extra-legal conferences — are held to overcome differences in 
such contingencies. If a bill is passed by both houses it then goes to the 
Secretary of State for official publication and then to the President for his 
signature. Receiving that, it becomes law. 

How the Judiciary Branch of the Government Is Operated 

THE Constitution provides that there shall be a Supreme Court and 
that Congress shall create such inferior courts as it sees fit. Con- 
gress has provided for the following arrangement of Federal 
Courts; the most important is the Supreme Court, consisting of a Chief 
Justice and eight Associate Justices, the former receiving a salary of $13,- 
000 and each of the latter $12,500. They hold office for life and during 
good behavior. Their most important business is the consideration of cases 
involving constitutional law which come up on appeal from lower Federal 
courts or from State courts on writs of error. Each case must be tried with 
at least six of the Justices present, and a majority is needed for a decision. 
The Federal Courts of next importance are the nine Circuit Courts of 
Appeal, one for each of the nine circuits into which the nation is divided. 
These courts consider questions appealed from lower Federal Courts in their 
respective circuits, unless the cases involve such weighty matters as capital 
punishment, or the Constitution, or treaties of the nation, and so on, in 
which instances appeal goes directly to the Supreme Court. Below the 
Circuit Courts of Appeal are the Circuit Courts having jurisdiction in mat- 
ters involving breach of the Federal law, or cases between citizens of dif- 
ferent States. The Federal District Court is the lowest United States 
Court. There are about ninety of these throughout the country and they 
vary in the matter of territory under their jurisdiction. Thus while there 

154. 



GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

is but one Federal District Court for Colorado, New York State has four. 
These courts consider questions appealed from lower Federal Courts in their 
punishment — and admiralty, maritime, and bankruptcy cases. 

The Department of Justice, headed by the Attorney-General, who is 
a member of the Cabinet, is another part of the judiciary branch of the 
Government. Members of this Department act as the attorneys for the 
Government where it is involved in legal cases and also enforce regard for 
federal law through bringing cases of disregard before the proper Federal 
Courts. The Government is represented by an attorney, who is a member 
of the Department of Justice, in each of the Federal judicial districts. In 
each district there is also a Federal marshal who makes arrests. Both offi- 
cers are appointees of the President. 

The jurisdiction of the Federal Courts covers cases in which the United 
States takes part, cases involving one or more States as parties against other 
States or citizens without the jurisdiction of said States, cases involving 
questions concerning the Constitution, admiralty and maritime enterprise. 
The Federal Courts also have the power of issuing the writs of habeas 
corpus, mandamus, and injunction, wherever Federal law enters into a 
case. Where the constitutionality of either Federal and State laws is in- 
volved, the Federal Courts also have jurisdiction. 

What the Government Guarantees the People 

WE have considered the machinery of the Federal Government; 
now we may observe its operations. The Constitution may be 
amended in four ways. Such a proposition may arise in Con- 
gress by action of two-thirds of both houses and may be ratified by the leg- 
islatures of three-fourths of the States. It may arise in the same maimer 
and be ratified by conventions in three-fourths of the States. It may arise 
upon application of the legislatures in two-thirds of the States, whereupon 
Congress must call a national convention to draft it, after which it must 
receive the ratification of conventions in three-fourths of the States. Or, 
having had the same origin and having been drafted by a similar national 
convention it may be ratified by the legislatures in three-fourths of the 
States. 

The rights guaranteed to the individual against the Federal Govern- 
ment are found in clauses in the Constitution which provide that the Fed- 
eral Government may not establish a religion or interfere with free- 
dom of worship. The Federal Government cannot interfere with free- 
dom of speech or of the press, or the right to assemble peaceably and of pe- 
tition to Government. As to the punishment of persons it is provided that 
treason should be such an act as is defined in the Constitution only, no bill 

155 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

of attainder or ex-post facto law is valid, arrest by general warrant is pro- 
hibited, indictment by grand jury and trial by jury are guaranteed, the writ 
of habeas corpus cannot be suspended (except in case of rebellion or in- 
vasion), excessive bail is not to be levied, and in criminal proceedings due 
process of law must be regarded. 

As to the property rights, the Constitution provides that the Federal 
Government may not define property; and, though the right of eminent 
domain is to be held by the Federal Government there are restrictions as to 
its actions against private property. These provide for uniformity of im- 
posts throughout the country and against the taxation of goods exported 
from any State. 

It will be noted that all of these rights guaranteed to the individual 
are held against the Federal Government; the Constitution guarantees none 
against the State Governments. The rights of person against the latter 
are to be found in their respective constitutions and will be dealt with 
later. 

How Our Foreign Affairs Are Conducted 

BETWEEN the President and foreign countries the Department of 
State acts as the functionary organ. No official communication 
may go to a foreign State or be received from one without going 
through that department. The ambassadors, consuls, and other officials 
of the United States abroad are officers of the State Department. But 
the treaty-making power is in the hands of the President and the Senate; 
yet even here the State Department is the agency through which negotia- 
tions are carried on. 

How We Maintain Our Army and Navy 

NATIONAL defense is primarily the business of the Departments of 
War and of the Navy. The regular army is limited by law to 
100,000 men; in each of the States there are regiments of or- 
ganized militia — trained citizens — at the disposal of the Federal Govern- 
ment. In times of war it is customary to augment these forces by calling 
for volunteers. But by a law passed in 1908 every male American citizen 
between the age of eighteen and forty-five is a member of the Reserve 
Militia. The navy of the United States has been created by Congress 
under specific clauses to be found in the Constitution. Only citizens of the 
country may enlist in it. The conduct of war is a matter which varies 
with circumstances. The President, though he is Commander-in-Chief of 
both branches of the service, does not actually take the field ; the manage- 
ment of campaigns is left to experts in the proper departments. But the 

156 




BATTLE OF STONY TOIXT IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION — It was here that General Anthony 
Wayne stormed the fort upon a rocky promontory overlooking the Hudson on July 15, 
X77<) — The Americans had been forced to abandon it — It was now occupied by the 
British — Washington determined on its recapture — The attack was made 
about midnight across the marsh leading to the fort — The Americans 
did not fire but charged with bayonets — Wayne was wounded in 
the head and was carried into the fort — The British surrend- 
ered and the garrison of 540 men Were taken prisoners, 



GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

money necessary to conduct war is controlled by Congress. As the head 
of the country's militant forces, the President takes on a military charac- 
ter and under it may suspend the writ of habeas corpus (though only in 
times of war) and overrule the acts of officers or of courts-martial, and 
may appoint or remove even admirals and generals. 

How We Finance the American Nation 

CONGRESS, according to the Constitution, has control over the na- 
tion's finances. It may raise taxes, making them uniform 
throughout the country, causing direct taxation to be apportioned 
among the States according to their respective populations; it may not tax 
the exports from any State nor can it tax the instrumentalities or proper- 
ties of any State. The sixteenth amendment to the Constitution gives Con- 
gress the right to levy an income-tax. All bills for raising revenue must 
originate in the House of Representatives as provided by the Constitution ; 
but often the Senate, when it comes to consider these before they become 
law, makes radical changes in them. The Department of the Treasury is 
the agency which is entrusted with the collection of Federal revenue and 
does so through one branch which is responsible for customs duties and 
another which is responsible for internal revenue — taxes on liquor, cigars, 
playing-cards, and so on. 

Congress has the right to issue both specie and paper money, to regu- 
late the value of money and make loans. No State may coin money, ten- 
der payment of debt in anything but gold and silver currency of the United 
States, or authorize bills of credit. Congress has arranged a system of 
national banks for the sake of elasticity of the currency and has during the 
present administration provided for a Federal Reserve Bank. National 
banks, after meeting certain requirements laid down by law, may issue bank 
notes, through the comptroller. 

How We Control American Commerce and Trade 

CONGRESS regulates the commerce between this country and for- 
eign countries and that which passes between States. Through 
the latter power it controls railways and common carriers operat- 
ing between States, corporations doing business in more than one State, and 
such matters as the purity of food, the purity of drugs, and the contents of 
publications which pass from one State to another. The matter of immi- 
gration also comes into its hands, as does the matter of tariffs. It may 
pass such laws as it sees fit, provided they do not transgress the Constitu- 
tion, in regulating these. The business of handling these matters comes un- 
der the jurisdiction of the Departments of Commerce and Labor, these de- 

159 



AMERICA; THE LAND WE LOVE 

partments being also responsible for the diffusing of information on sub- 
jects related to labor. They essay, also, to adjust the differences between 
parties involved in strikes that affect interstate and foreign commerce and 
trade. 

How We Operate the Fost'Office System 

SPECIFIC clauses in the Constitution give Congress the right to es- 
tablish post-offices and post-roads, and through the powers thus con- 
ferred it has built up our postal service. The business of this serv- 
ice is a matter in the hands of the Post-Office Department. In addition to 
handling mail such as letters and post-cards, it handles parcels, within 
certain physical limits, and issues money-orders for use both within the bor- 
ders of the country and to foreign countries. A recent law has created 
postal savings banks. 

How We Frotect the American Territories 



I 



"^ ERRITORY which is not part of a State and which is under the 
jurisdiction of the Federal Government is known as Federal Ter- 
ritory. It is treated as property of the United States and is gov- 
erned under clauses in the Constitution which give Congress the right to 
dispose of such territory and property and to make the rule necessary for 
regulating it. At present all land actually on the Continent of North 
America, except the District of Columbia and Alaska, under the jurisdiction 
of the Federal Government is part of one State or another; but Alaska, 
the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippine Islands, Porto Rico, the Panama 
Canal Zone and certain insular possessions are Territories. 

The Hawaiians have a governor and secretary appointed by the Presi- 
dent and the Senate; all persons who were there citizens of the republic 
of Hawaii in 1898, before annexation to the United States, enjoy the citi- 
zenship of the latter; the Islands have a legislature consisting of two 
houses, the members of each being elected by popular vote, the voters being 
citizens of the United States, residents, and at least twenty-one years old. 

The citizens of Porto Rico are citizens of that island only and do not 
possess the citizenship of the United States ; it has an appointed governor, 
serving a term of four years, and six appointed executive officers, also ap- 
pointed by the President and the Senate. These six, together with five 
citizens of good repute appointed by the President and the Senate, form the 
upper house of its legislative body; the lower house consists of thirty-five 
members who are native inhabitants of the island, elected by the popular 
vote of the adult males in the island who satisfy certain residence require- 
ments. 

160 



GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

The Philippine Islands are governed according to an Organic Act 
passed by Congress in igo2. The executive government is in the hands 
of a commission of nine men, including the governor. All of them — five 
Americans and four native Filipinos — are appointed by the President and 
the Senate. The Philippine Commission is the upper house of the legis- 
lative body, and voters in all but certain parts of the islands elect the mem- 
bers of the lower house, these voters being men who meet certain literacy 
tests, tests concerning payment of taxes or owning of property, and a taking 
an oath of allegiance to the United States. 

Alaska is governed by an executive appointed by the President and 
the Senate. He enjoys a four-year term, sees that the laws of Congress 
are obeyed, commands the militia, and makes an annual report to the Presi- 
dent. Congress has passed codes of civil and criminal procedure for use in 
Alaska. 

The Panama Canal Zone has for an executive official the chairman of 
the Isthmian Canal Commission, an appointee of the President, who as- 
signs his authority to one of the commissioners. The commission, by au- 
thority granted by the President, is the legislative organ for that territory; 
there are seven commissioners, appointees of the President. 

The District of Columbia, in which the city of Washington is situated, 
has for an executive organ a board of three commissioners, two of whom 
are civilians and the third a military officer. All three are appointees of the 
President and govern the city with ordinances. 

How We Operate Our State Governments 

THE State Governments operate In spheres which are defined by the 
Constitution. Their taxing powers are limited ; they cannot tax 
exports or imports. Federal property or instrumentalities; they 
cannot Interfere with interstate commerce or exercise any control over the 
monetary system. No State may pass a bill of attainder or pass a law 
divesting itself of its obligation of contracts. No State may In any way 
curtail the privileges of a citizen of the United States or deprive them, 
without court trial, of the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. 
All of these Inhibitions are provided for by the Federal Constitution. In 
making a study of the State Governments, it is manifestly impossible to 
study each separately ; all that can be done here is to indicate what are the 
common principles which are to be found In them. 

The fundamental law in each State is Its constitution, this document 
usually having six parts, the first being a bill of rights, the second being 
a framework of the State Government with its limitations set forth, the 
third dealing with State finances, the fourth providing for economic welfare, 

161 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

the fifth dealing with educational and social welfare, the sixth dealing with 
the methods for amending the State's Constitution. 

The part dealing with the bill of rights usually provides that no citi- 
zen is to be interfered with in the matter of his religion, freedom of speech, 
of the press; trial by jury, indictment by grand jury and similar famous 
rights are guaranteed. The part dealing with the framework of the State's 
Government provides, in every instance, for an executive, a legislative, and 
a judiciary branch of government. 

Every one of the States has at the head of its executive branch a popu- 
larly elected governor, excepting Mississippi, whose governor is elected by 
an indirect method. The terms of these governors vary from one to four 
years, and the qualifications which they must have involve minimum age 
limitations, restrictions as to the number of terms one man may enjoy, and 
so on. Their salaries range from $2,500 to $12,000. Usually they have 
a wide appointing power, commanding State militia, have extensive par- 
doning powers, and, in all instances, are responsible for the enforcement of 
the State laws. In every State except North Carolina the governor has the 
power of veto. Most of the States have as part of their administrative 
machinery a lieutenant-governor, who is the legal successor to the governor 
should the latter's term end prematurely; a secretary of state who has in 
charge the State's archives, keeps election records and supervises elections; 
a treasurer, who has charge of the State's moneys; an auditor, who has 
charge of the State's books, and an attorney-general, who acts as the State's 
counsel when it is a defendant and who prosecutes those who transgress 
the State's law. In addition, most of the States have an extensive list of 
minor officers of administration. 

The legislative branch of the State Governments Is In all cases a bi- 
cameral body, known sometimes as the legislative assembly, sometimes as 
the general assembly and sometimes by names of less general application. 
Members of both houses are chosen by popular vote; the members meet a 
variety of qualifications as to age, residence, and so on; their terms vary 
from State to State, as their salaries. 

The business of the State legislatures is to promulgate the laws by 
which the State Is governed, always with the understanding that no law 
it may pass Is valid if it comes into conflict with a provision In either the 
State Constitution or the Federal Constitution. In organization and pro- 
cedure they follow the general lines of the Federal legislature and are to a 
great extent copies of it. 

The States' judicial systems are also broad Imitations of that of the 
Federal Government, with supreme courts at the head of the systems and 
beneath them courts of appeal, circuit courts, district courts, and county 

162 




BATTLE AT ruiNCETON IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION — ^Here Washington surprised the British 

on January 3, 1777, with a deadly bayonet charge — Frederick the Great, of 

Prussia declared it a brilliant military achievement. 



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HATTLK OF GEKMAXTOWN IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION— Here, in the confusion of a heavy 

fog at sunrise on October 4, 1777, the Americans met the British and were 

forced to retreat — Washington's plans were upset and war prolonged. 



GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

courts. It is the State Court that the cases involving breaches of State law 
or State jurisdiction must go. There is a great variety in the way in which 
judges come to their positions, their terms, their salaries, and their removal. 
The two great sources of State law are the statutes enacted by the State 
legislatures and the English common law. 

How We Manage Our Towns and Cities 

"^^OR purposes of local government, the States are divided into counties 
(parishes in Louisiana), and these in turn are divided into towns 
and townships. The chief officers in the counties are the sheriff, 
the prosecuting attorney for that county for the State, and the judges whose 
jurisdiction is limited to a county. Towns and townships are governed 
by boards of one kind or another. 

Cities in the United States are without exception amenable to the law 
of the States in which they are found and enjoy a varying amount of lib- 
erty in dealing with their own problems. The most common form of mu' 
nicipal government is that in which the executive officer is a mayor. Lately, 
government of cities ruled by commissions has been coming into vogue. As 
further parts of the executive arm of municipal government there are boards 
of health, of education, finance, departments of police, fire, water, and 
so on. 

What corresponds to the legislative branch of government in the Fed- 
eral and State Governments is, in the cities, known as the board of alder- 
men or city council. Their promulgations are known as ordinances and may 
not conflict either with State or Federal law. They may raise revenue 
through issuing licenses or levies on property; they may provide for mu- 
nicipal enterprises of various kinds, and in so doing may contract loans and 
issue city bonds. The municipality is, in fact, a corporation. 

Thus, in this brief survey, we have observed the operation of our form 
of government. It is a simple, straightforward business proposition in 
which our success or failure depends largely upon the character and ability 
of the men whom the people elect to public office — the servants of the peo- 
ple. These offices should be filled by men of integrity and capacity, using 
the same discrimination that is ordinarily used in appointing managers for 
any business enterprise — as the operation of government is the greatest of 
all business propositions. 

The American Government has many problems to solve; it has met 
many crises and has stood the test; it will meet many new crises in our eco- 
nomic development and social progress. Let us all stand loyally, shoulder 
to shoulder, as equal shareholders in this great co-operative enterprise, 
laboring indefatigably for the success and prosperity of the nation. 

165 



FART II CH.\PTER IV 

GREAT AMERICAN WARS 



This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, 
For freedom only deals the deadly blow; 
Then sheathes in calm repose the deadly blade. 
For gentle peace in freedom's hallowed shade. 
—John Quincy Adams. 



W 



'^"^ "^ "I^AR — that mad game the world so loves to play" is indeed 
a survival of the medieval dictum that "might makes 
right.'* When Reason is overthrown, men and nations 
abandon all social and economic principles and fall back 
to their biological instincts — the survival of the fittest by brute force and 
cunning. War, therefore, is the court of arbitrament when Reason breaks 
down. It is the constantly recurring animal instinct in social psychology; 
it is an economic eruption. 

But, with all its hideous tortures and glories, war has been a purga- 
tive with which society has cleansed itself — by which it has purified itself 
with fire. Primitive though it be, it is the process through which civiliza- 
tion has forged its way and from which human freedom has been born. 
The chains of bondage have been struck from the human race largely by 
fire and sword. Mankind has attained liberty by rising in its physical 
might and taking it; he has had to break down tyranny by physical force. 
And, strange as the paradox may seem, the greatest despot that ever held 
the human race enslaved in its hideous clutches is this same overmastering 
system of war. It will be the last of the despots to be dethroned, but that 
time will come and is coming rapidly when war will be abolished as the 
last vestige of savagery, and then at last reason will rule. 

The American people are not a warring people; they have progressed 
beyond the gluttony of war — but they do not fail to realize that, while 
war exists as a peril to mankind, it is the rule of reason that all nations 
should be prepared to defend themselves against it. As Washington said : 
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual ways of preserving 
peace." The time will come, as Hugo predicted, when a cannon will be 
a curiosity and arms will rust — when the world will wonder how such 
things ever could have been. But until this time nations must be ready 
to strike down the destroyer, while expending their efforts and genius to 
devise a new medium for arbitrament — while planning for the universal 
abolishment of war. The American people are a peace-loving people; 

167 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

they are leading the world to-day in solving the greatest problem that 
besets the human race — emancipation from war. Mankind learns only 
by experience and experiment — war will cease only when man discovers 
that its cost is greater than its gains. 

American civilization, however, has not been born without the strug- 
gles and pains of war. It has passed through the crucible, under the 
flaming sword. Let it be said, however, with emphasis, that it has made 
its greatest progress through peace — by its inventive genius, which has 
revolutionized and reconstructed the modern world — despite war. (See 
chapter on Great American Inventions.) 

War's victories consist almost wholly of political liberties and terri- 
torial expansion — purchased at an incalculable cost of human lives and 
enormous economic losses. The first explorers fought their way across the 
American continent. The first wars were wars of conquest — the subjec- 
tion of savagery to civilization in order to avoid a reversal of the situation ; 
it was meeting primitive instincts with other primitive instincts. The 
Spanish adventurers waged war on barbarity with a cruelty that was bar- 
barity itself. The clashes between the English colonists and the Indians 
were in self-defense from both viewpoints — each feared extermination 
by the other. The French and Indian wars were fought to decide the mas- 
tery of a continent. 

The American Revolution — War For Independence 

WAR for American Independence — this is the first American war 
— that is a war of American nationality. The American Revo- 
lution was an economic explosion — a social evolution — the 
birth-throes of a gigantic idealism which gave conception to a new nation 
and a new era. Like an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, there was a so- 
cial eruption on the Western Hemisphere in which was emitted the burn- 
ing lava of democracy — later to coagulate into a solid substance that was 
to form the foundations of the American republic. This was the war 
for American Independence, the economic causes of which are set forth 
in the Declaration of Independence with words that have since inspired 
the whole world to the love of liberty. This war was not so much a 
revolt against despotic monarchy, however, as it was an outburst of the 
dynamic forces of democracy, which have found an outlet for expression 
on the American continent. 

Let us survey the chief military facts associated with this war. Here 
we see an army composed largely of peace-loving farmers and mechanics, 
who, upon refusing to pay the taxes demanded by the British monarchy, 
were forced to defend themselves against invasion by the soldiers of the 

168 




FIRST liATTLK OF THE AMEilllCAN REVOLUTIOX — Here we see the patriots opposing the 

British as they marclied from Lexington to (.'oncord — Paul Revere carriefl the warning on 

his historic ride — The first battle was fought at Lexington, on April 19, 1775. 




FIRST STEPS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION — Here we see the eolonists fortifying P.reed's 
Hill on the night of June 16, 1775 — The patriots worked incessantly all night. — At day- 
light the British ships in the river opened fire. The cannonading aroused 
tlie sleepers In Boston and the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought- 




WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE— It is early morning December 25, 1776— Tlie river is packea 

■with floating ice — Washington stands in the bow, leading his army to surprise the British 

intrenched at Trenton — Behind him two soldiers hold an American flag. 




FAMOUS I'AINTING IN THE METROrOLITAN MUSEUM— This historic canvas which depicts one of the 

most heroic incidents in the American Revolution, was painted in 1851 by Emanuel Leutze 

(1810-1868) — It was presented to the Meti"opolitan by John S. Kennedy. 



GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

king. It was the culmination of a long series of anti-climaxes in which 
the monarchy, failing to comprehend the spirit of democracy, sought to 
maintain its integrity by discipline and force. The beginnings of the 
American armies were the Minute Men of New England. The troubles 
between the English military governor of Massachusetts and the people 
of that State were fast approaching a crisis, in the spring of 1775- A 
Committee of Safety (note the word and make your own economic deduc- 
tion) at Cambridge ordered that a military force be formed; this force 
was to consist of 2,000 men, who at a minute's notice were to leave the 
occupations of peace and become soldiers. These men drilled to prepare 
themselves for an emergency, and munitions for their use were stored. 

The British governor, hearing of these activities, decided to assert the 
power of the monarchy against insurrection and sent a force to Concord, 
Massachusetts, where the munitions were hidden. But he was anticipated 
by the people. On the night of April 18, 1775, the British troops began 
the twenty-mile march from Boston to Concord. The Minute Men were 
called to the defense of their property — and the two forces met in conflict 
at the little village of Lexington. Here the first battle of the American 
Revolution was fought — and won by the defenders. As soon as the news 
reached Vermont, the Green Mountain Boys attacked and captured Fort 
Ticonderoga, May 10, 1775- 

The first real American army was now to come into existence. The 
Continental Congress met in June, 1775, and designated the Boston forces 
as the Continental Army of America. George Washington was appointed 
to take supreme command. He received his commission on June 16th, 
and, while on the way to join the army, he learned that the Battle of 
Bunker Hill had been fought (June 17, 1775). Bunker Hill and Breed's 
Hill, two mounds which overlook Boston, near Charlestown, were of 
strategic importance, and the Americans knew that the British General 
Gage intended to fortify them. A force sent to occupy Bunker's Hill 
went by mistake to Breed's Hill and there threw up breastworks. The 
British soldiers made the attack. In the first charge the Britishers were 
driven back, for the Americans, waiting till "they could see the whites of 
the enemies' eyes," withheld their fire till the enemy was right on top of 
them. A second charge by the British was successful, and the Americans 
retired. 

It was on July 3, 1775, that Washington arrived at Boston and took 
charge of the American forces. His troops were without discipline, they 
were without uniforms, without sufficient powder, and their guns were of 
every description — but they were aflame with an ideal. For eight months, 
Washington kept the British locked up in Boston with this force, and in 

173 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

that time he organized a strong volunteer army under his inspiring leader- 
ship. In the meantime, to forestall an attack from Canada, Congress sent 
two forces there ; one under Benedict Arnold, and another under Richard 
Montgomery. Though Quebec was entered and Montreal was captured, 
the American armies could not hold their positions and retired again to 
American territory. 

In the spring of I776, Washington began active campaigning 
against the British force in Boston. On March 17, he took Dorchester 
Heights, south of Boston. The British General Howe, deeming it wiser 
to retreat from Boston than to give battle, evacuated the town and sailed 
with his army to Halifax. Washington, under the belief that New York 
would be the next point of British attack, moved to that city and encamped 
on Brooklyn Heights. General Howe, with 25,000 troops, came to Staten 
Island, where he established a camp. He attempted to take the American 
force at Brooklyn Heights in August, 1776, but Washington ingeniously 
retreated from there, crossed over to Manhattan, and with the English 
at his heels moved north to White Plains, where he finally crossed the 
Hudson to retreat to Newark, New Jersey. 

Here we witness the first discord which threatened to disrupt the 
American cause. Washington had left General Charles Lee in New York 
v/ith a small force of men; he now ordered Lee to join him at Hackensack, 
New Jersey. But Lee became a victim of his own jealousy and mutinously 
refused to join Washington, who was then forced to start a retreat with 
Philadelphia as its objective. The British General Cornwallis took ad- 
vantage of the situation and followed him closely. Lee finally did cross 
the Hudson and was captured by the British, but his force escaped, and, 
under the command of General Sullivan, joined the commander-in-chief 
just in time for an attack against the Hessians, mercenaries of the British, 
in the battle of Trenton, on Christmas night, 1776, when 1,000 Hessians 
were made prisoners. On came Cornwallis, driving the Americans into a 
critical position between his own forces and the Delaware River. But 
on the night of January 2, 1777, Washington slipped around Cornwallis' 
army and routed three regiments by a rear attack. Cornwallis then retired 
to New Brunswick, and Washington to Morristown, New Jersey. Both 
armies encamped for the winter. 

With the spring, activities were resumed. The British with a fleet 
made a feint as though they were to take Philadelphia. Washington, who 
had already made a march into New York from Morristown, found 
it urgent to change his plans and march south. A British force under 
Howe was landed on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. Washington moved 
on to Wilmington, Delaware. As the British began a move against 

174 



.GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

Washington, he fell back from Wilmington to Chadds Ford, on the Brandy- 
wine, and there, on September 11, 1777, Washington was defeated. 
Among those wounded in that fight was the Marquis de Lafayette, the 
French aristocrat who had volunteered for service with the American army. 
Washington retired to Philadelphia. Howe followed him thither, and, 
being out-marched, Washington abandoned the city of Philadelphia and 
moved to Valley Forge, after suffering a severe defeat at German- 
town, Pennsylvania. Here he spent the winter; his troops were in pitiable 
condition, the shoes of his soldiers being so worn that their bleeding feet 
left blood-stains in the snow. Howe spent the winter in Philadelphia. 

The two armies were now pitted around Philadelphia, fighting for pos- 
session of that city. There was brilliant strategy, however, in this plan that 
worked to the advantage of the Americans and won them the decisive vic- 
tory. The defeats of the American army kept the British army divided. 
The British, having planned to cut the New England States off from the 
rest, decided to conquer the eastern part of New York State. General 
Burgoyne was to march down to Albany from Lake Champlain. There 
he was to meet a force under Colonel St. Leger, which would arrive after 
coming down Lake Ontario to Oswego and through the valley of the Mo- 
hawk to Albany. A third force under General Howe was to go up the 
Hudson from Manhattan. On July 5, 1776, Burgoyne took Ticonderoga 
and then went to Bennington to destroy American munitions, but there he 
encountered Colonel John Stark's force and was routed. Howe failed to 
come up the Hudson, and St. Leger met with defeat at Rome, New York. 
Burgoyne, having no support, tried to retreat. He reached Saratoga and 
there on October 17, 1777, was forced to surrender — thus the first decisive 
victory in the war was won by the Americans. 

France now espoused the American cause and sent aid in the form 
of a fleet. Hearing of this. Sir Henry Clinton, successor to Howe, left 
Philadelphia and came to New York. General Washington followed, 
and in the fall of 1778 partly surrounded the British army in New York 
by stretching his forces in a cordon from Morristown, New Jersey, to 
West Point, New York. The British in New York now for some months 
were to rest on their arms. Their campaigns as a whole had not been 
decided successes. They now transferred their activities to the South, 
after making attempts, during 1779, to draw Washington away from 
New York. The British General Clinton, in the spring of 1780, cap- 
tured Charleston, South Carolina. A new American army had been 
quickly raised and placed under General Gates, but it was defeated by 
CornwalHs at Camden, South Carolina, on August 16, 1780. It was a 
very severe defeat and came soon after another tragedy — the brilliant 

175 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

but deluded Benedict Arnold, In command at West Point, intrigued in 
July, 1780, to deliver the fort to the British. The British agent in the 
conspiracy, Major Andre, was captured, and Arnold fled to the British lines, 
later becoming a British officer. 

Again a new American army was raised for operations In the South, 
and this time General Nathaniel Greene was given command. He all but 
destroyed the British forces in the South at Cowpens, South Carolina, on 
January 17, 1781. Cornwallis was now pitted against him. Though 
forced to much strategical retreating during the next few months, 
Greene had driven the British out of South Carolina by the fall of 
1781. Cornwallis now started to fortify Yorktown, Virginia, where he 
was surrounded by the American forces on land (now under the com- 
mand of Washington) and the French fleet on the sea. The decisive mo- 
ment had come — only surrender was left to him, and he took that action 
on October 19, 1781. This marked the end of British hopes for success, 
and, though there was further fighting between scattered forces, a treaty 
of peace was signed in November, 1782. The American Revolution had 
been fought and won — the spirit of democracy had triumphed — a new na- 
tion was born. 

It would not be just to close this brief survey of the American 
Revolution without a few words regarding the American naval forces and 
their brilliant victories. The American navy had come into existence on 
October 13, 1775, when Congress commissioned two sailing vessels; two 
months later it authorized the building of thirteen cruisers. While 
these were on the stays, merchant vessels to the number of eight were 
converted into warships; this fleet sailed to the Bahamas, where it made 
an attack and returned safely to New London, Connecticut. Meantime, 
privateers were "sniping" at British merchantmen and warships every- 
where. On the coast of France, the Surprise and the Revenge were fitted 
out and sailed under the American flag, doing much damage to British 
shipping in 1777. John Paul Jones, with the Bonhomme Richard^ har- 
ried the English coasts, entered the harbor of Whitehaven, destroyed mu- 
nitions there, and fought the British Drake, which he captured (1778). 
On September 23, 1779, he met and fought the Serapis, which survived 
the fight. When his own ship went down, he sailed away in his prize. 
The British lost 102 vessels in the war; the 24 lost by the Americans 
amounted to almost their entire navy. By the articles of the final treaty 
of peace, which were signed in 1783, the English Government acknowl- 
edged the Independence of the United States, and the boundaries of the 
new republic were decided and agreed upon. 

176 




BATTLE OF THE THAMES IN WAR OF 1812 — Gen. William H. Harrison vanquished the 

British, on October 5, 181 ;i — Their Indian allies were routed, and fled into 

the swamps — ^Tecumseh, the Indian chief, was slain. 




BATTLES AT PLATTSBURG IN WAR OF 1812— Here, on banks of Lake Champlain, the 

Americans met the British on their invasion from Canada — After terrific fighting 

the British on September 11, 1814, fled back to Canada. 




FAMOUS NAVAL BATTLES IN AMERICAN HIST()K\ — i liis cutjriivins memorializes the 
great battle between the Constitution and the Guerri^re — It was fought on August 
19, 1812, off the Bay of Fundy — The Guerri6re was set on fire and blown up. 




HEROIC DEEDS OF GALLANT AMERICANS — Captain Lawrence was fatally wounded i 

battle between the Chesapeake and Shannon, on June 1, 1813 — Forced to surrender, his 

ship was taken as a prize into Halifax— His last words were : "Don't give up the ship." 



GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

War With France — Establishing American Integrity 

WAR with France — this is the second war of the American people 
and the first after the founding of the nation. It was a series 
of short hostilities with France — a most unfortunate misunder- 
standing with America's loyal friend in the American Revolution. After 
the Revolution the French became offended with America because of our 
recent treaty, Jay's Treaty, with England, which was signed in 1794. It 
brought an end to France's hopes that America might again engage in 
war against her enemy England, and it angered the French because of 
the advantages which it gave to England. Friction between America 
and France grew until the public here believed that our national honor 
was at stake. The expulsion of the American minister from France had 
much to do with bringing on this state of affairs. War came in 1798, 
and it was fought entirely on the sea. The Amercian warships Constella- 
tion, Boston and Enterprise met the French ships Insurgente, Vengeance, 
Berceau, and others, in individual encounters — and in each the Americans 
won. Minor fights proved as glorious for America and, when Napoleon 
became the head of the French Government, he, in 1800, brought the hostil- 
ities to an end. This war at least asserted to the world that the Amer- 
ican nation was an independent power that proposed to maintain its 
integrity. 

Second War With England — Establishing Freedom of the Seas 

WAR of 1812 against England — this is the third American war 
— only twenty-nine years after our first victory over the Mother- 
country. It is known as the second war with England or the 
War of 1812. The trouble arose over the freedom of American com- 
merce. England and France were engaged in the Napoleonic War. In 
seeking to destroy each other's commerce, they flagrantly disregarded 
American rights on the sea from 1806 onward. The actions of the Eng- 
lish in this respect were very defiant to the American people. It was 
generally believed that they were seeking revenge because they had not 
forgotten the English rule in America previous to 1 776. In the proclama- 
tion of war, issued June 18, 1812, President Madison named four causes 
for declaring it: the inciting of Indians to attack on the American fron- 
tiers, the interference with American commerce in European waters, the 
stationing of cruisers off American ports to search American vessels, and 
the impressment of American seamen. 

Three American armies immediately started to Invade Canada under 
Generals Hull, Van Rensselaer and Dearborn. But all three were de- 

179 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

feated, Hull surrendering. Oliver Hazard Perry, with a fleet hastily 
equipped on the Great Lakes, captured the whole of the British lake fleet 
at the Battle of Lake Erie, in September, 1812. His victory was com- 
plete and his report of it was given in the cryptic message: "We have 
met the enemy and they are ours." 

Another attempt at invading Canada was made in 1813. The town of 
York was taken and burned, but the American forces did not have confidence 
to go on and returned to New York. A third attempt was made in 1814, 
and Generals Winfield Scott and Jacob Brown won the battles of Chip- 
pewa and Lundys Lane, only to be driven out of Canada later. The 
British now planned to invade New York with the same plan on which 
Burgoyne had started out in 1776. But their land forces were defeated 
at Plattsburg by General Macomb, and their fleet was destroyed in Platts- 
burg Bay by McDonough. 

On the high seas the Americans were writing glorious history. 
When the war started, there were sixteen ships in the American navy to 
1,200 in the British service. The American frigate Constitution started 
with a victory over the Guerriere and many other British ships. The 
United States defeated the Macedonian^ and the Wasp captured the Brit- 
ish ship Frolic^ but on the same day was taken by the Poictiers. In 1813, 
the Constitution added to her fame by taking the Java; the English ship 
Feacock fell a victim to the Hornet^ and the Boxer was captured by the 
American ship Enterprise. The Pelican of the English navy defeated 
the Argus after the latter had destroyed 27 ships in English waters. 
The American ship Chesapeake^ under Captain Lawrence, was challenged 
by the Shannon in Boston Harbor and was defeated. Lawrence, before 
meeting his death, uttered the famous command: "Don't give up the 
ship." By 1814 the British ceased to consider the heroic little American 
navy as a weak adversary, and, realizing the humiliating position in 
which the empire was being placed, sent over here all available ships 
and blockaded the American ports. A large fleet came up from Bermuda, 
and, entering Chesapeake Bay, sailed up and landed troops in Mary- 
land. Marching on to Washington, the British burned public buildings 
in revenge for the burning of York. Meanwhile, an extremely large ex- 
pedition set out from Jamaica in November, 1814, to take New Orleans. 
Madison ordered Andrew Jackson to defend the Southern city. With 
a loss of only 71 men, he saved New Orleans and inflicted the loss of 
2,036 English troops in battle on January 8, 1815. The British made 
no further attacks against him. Peace negotiations had been opened and 
a treaty was signed at Ghent, calling for cessation of hostilities and arrang- 
ing permanent agreement for peace, a month before the attack was made 

180 



GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

on New Orleans. But, owing to the fact that news could at that time 
cross the Atlantic only on sailing vessels, this message arrived in America 
too late to prevent the battle. 

The treaty which resulted from the war embodied no mention what- 
soever of the causes of the war. As far as the document itself went, it 
did little more than end the fighting; but the war had brought the atten- 
tion of the world to the fact that America stood ready to defend its rights 
at all times. It was an excellent warning to the Old World powers — 
and a warning which they heeded till the end of the century. 

War With Mexico — Maintaining American Principles 

WAR with Mexico — this is the fourth American war. The causes 
of this war lay in the troubles that had been engendered by the 
admission of Texas into the Union in 1845. When the Re- 
public of Texas declared its independence of Mexico, in 1837, its 
boundaries were set to the westward along the Rio Grande, from one 
end of it to the other, and along a line running north from its source 
to the 42nd parallel. Mexico claimed that the western boundary ran 
along the Nueces River. The land between the Nueces River and the 
Rio Grande was in dispute up to 1846. At that time the Federal Gov- 
ernment decided to stand by the claims of Texas and sent troops into 
the disputed territory. General Zachary Taylor was placed in command. 
He was attacked by the Mexicans on April 25, 1846. When the news 
reached the President, he decided to declare war. A proclamation was 
issued on May 12, 1846. Congress voted money and supplies for an 
army of 50,000 volunteers. Taylor met the Mexicans at Palo Alto and 
defeated them. He defeated them again at Resaca de la Palma and then 
took Matamoras. Here he remained to wait for supplies and reinforce- 
ments before marching on to Monterey. The Mexican General Ampudia 
surrendered that city on September 24, 1846, after a hard battle. Gen- 
eral Taylor moved on to Saltillo. 

With the increase in the number of American troops. General Win- 
field Scott was placed in supreme command of all the American forces 
and was despatched to Mexico. He reached the theater of war in Janu- 
ary, 1847. He met Santa Anna at Vera Cruz, whence the latter had 
gone after having been defeated by Taylor at Buena Vista on February 
23, 1847. Scott took Vera Cruz in March and then started on his con* 
quest of Mexico City. He fought battles in quick succession — Cerro 
Gordo, April 18; Jalapa, April 19; Perote, April 22; Puebla, May 15. 
He reached his goal on August 10, 1847, and captured it on the 14th of 
September, 1847. General Scott had been victorious in every engagement, 

181 



AMERICA; THE LAND WE LOVE 

but the loss of men through the climatic conditions, disease, and battle, 
was enormous. 

While these operations to the southward were going on, the Gov- 
ernment despatched Colonel Stephen Kearny to New Mexico in the sum- 
mer of 1846. After taking that territory in the name of the govern- 
ment he marched west to take California, but on his arrival there found 
that it had been taken by Fremont. Hearing rumors of the war with 
Mexico, the American settlers in California had revolted and set up a 
republic of their own, receiving material aid from Fremont, who hap- 
pened to be in the mountains with a force, and from Commodore Stock- 
ton, who was then in Californian waters with his fleet. These forces held 
the country until Kearny arrived. 

The Mexicans, defeated everywhere, were not loath to sign the 
treaty of peace which was promulgated at Guadalupe Hidalgo in Febru- 
ary, 1848. By its terms Mexico ceded the land which now comprises 
California, Nevada, part of Utah, New Mexico, and part of the present 
State of Arizona — upon a payment of $15,000,000. Claims held by 
American citizens against Mexico, amounting to more than $3,000,000, 
were to be paid by the United States. The newly acquired territory con- 
tained 522,568 square miles. 

American Civil War — Decision of a Constitutional Froblem 

AMERICAN Civil War — this is the fifth great American war. 
Here we find the country divided against itself on a great eco- 
nomic issue. The issue which brought on the Civil War, and 
which was fought out by that war, was a constitutional question — the 
right of a State or States to secede from the Union, arising over the ques- 
tion of the extension of slavery, not the abolition of slavery. 

When Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Presidency, in i860, the 
Southerners realized that to rely on the ballot for the maintenance of 
their stand on the question was hopeless. They were out-voted; they 
saw that their voice would be a minor voice in the new Congress; they 
feared that this Congress and the President would not properly represent 
them and guarantee what they believed to be their rights. They decided 
to sever all connections with the Federal Government and set up their 
own Confederacy. 

A convention of delegates was called by the legislature of South 
Carolina a few days after Lincoln was elected. It formally renounced its 
connection with the Union, claiming to be a "sovereign, free and inde- 
pendent" State. This action was quickly followed by Alabama, Florida, 
Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Six of these States entered a 

182 




BATTLE OF CHIPPEWA IN WAR OF 1812 — It was here, near Niagara Falls, on the Canadian 

border, that the Americans under terrific Are attacked and repulsed 

the British and Indian allies on July 11th, 1814. 




BATTLE AT LUXDYS LANE IN WAR OF 1812 — Hero, near the groat cataract of Niagara Falls, 

a terrific battle between the Americans and British took place on July 

!.'•">, 1814 — ^It was the most brilliant exploit of the war. 













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■k 




GREAT AI^IERICAN WARS 

confederation on February 4, 1861, and set up the government of the 
Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was elected Provisional 
President and a constitution was formed. 

President Lincoln, in his interpretation of the American Constitution, 
refused to consider the Union dissolved. He declared he would carry 
out its laws with force as a final means. Fort Sumter, in South Caro- 
lina, was a Federal military station defended by a force of Union soldiers. 
On April 12, 1861, the Confederates fired on it and forced it to fall — 
the first shots in the most terrible fratricidal war in the world's history. 
The South had a population united in opinion as to the righteousness of 
its course. It had, also, the sympathy of all the great powers in Europe 
with the single exception of Russia. 

President Lincoln immediately called for 75,000 militia for three 
months' services. Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were 
forced to declare their position — all of them pledging themselves to the 
Confederacy. The Confederate capital was established at Richmond, 
Virginia. The mountaineers in the western part of Virginia formed the 
new State of West Virginia and cast their lot with the Union. Acting 
on the ground that the Union was still intact, Lincoln indicated that 
his volunteers were to come from every State in the Union, but no response 
came from those which had seceded, and the 75,000 men came from the 
North. By the summer of 1861, there were 183,588 men in the Union 
uniform, 42,000 having been enlisted for three years' service. The 
South raised a formidable army, and the two forces lined up for battle. 
The dividing line was in three parts; the first ran from Fortress Monroe, 
Virginia, up Chesapeake Bay to the Potomac River and westward to the 
mountains; the second part ran from there through West Virginia, and 
across Kentucky — which assumed neutrality — to the Mississippi River; 
the third part ran from there across the Indian Territory and New Mexico. 

The first battle occurred at Bull Run, in Virginia, thirty miles south- 
west of Washington, on July 21, 1861. It was a victory for the South. 
General Winfield Scott was chief in command of the Union forces. 
Under him was General McDowell, commanding the forces near Wash- 
ington. Further to the w^st. General Patterson was in command, while 
General George B. McClellan held the lines across West Virginia and the 
western part of old Virginia. General Lyon held command of the Union 
troops in Missouri. On the Southern side. General Beauregard opposed 
General McDowell at Bull Run, and other able strategists were espous- 
ing ♦'he Southern cause. In the eastern theater there was to be no fight- 
ing for some time after the battle of Bull Run, for McClellan gave his time 
to drilling his troops. 

185 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

In the western theater of war, General Buell sent General Thomas 
against the Confederates at Mill Springs in January, 1862, in an effort to 
break the Confederate line. And, in the next month, General Grant and 
Flag Officer Foote of the naval forces were commanded by their superior. 
General Halleck, to attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Foote, 
having accomplished this alone. Grant took his own force to attack Fort 
Donelson on the Cumberland River and defeated General Buckner, who 
surrendered to him on February 16, 1862. 

The Confederates now fell back toward Corinth, Mississippi, and 
were followed by three armies under General Halleck. The army under 
General S. R. Curtis defeated the Confederates in Missouri; the army 
under General John Pope cooperated with a force under Foote, took 
Island No. 10 and then rejoined Halleck as he moved against Corinth. 
A Union fleet went down the Mississippi and after causing the fall of 
Fort Pillow, sailed on down to Memphis, which was captured on June 6, 
1862. Grant had meanwhile been following the Confederates and, upon 
reaching Pittsburg Landing, was given battle and defeated by General 
A. S. Johnston. On the next day, April 7, 1862, he fought Johnston again 
and won the battle of Shiloh. Johnston moved on to Corinth and left it 
on occupation by Halleck at the end of May. The Unionist commander 
was then called to Washington to take command of all the Federal forces. 

The Unionist line in the west now ran from Memphis and Corinth 
to Chattanooga. Starting from the last named place, the Confederate 
General Bragg moved toward Louisville, Kentucky, but a counter move 
by General Buell thwarted him. Buell had drawn on Grant for troops 
for this move. Knowing this, the Confederate Generals Price and Van 
Dorn moved from luka and Holly Springs, respectively, for Corinth, but 
Grant despatched his subordinate, Rosecrans, to meet the former, which 
he did with success. Bragg now prepared to winter at Murfreesboro, Ten- 
nessee, and was attacked there by Rosecrans, who now had command of 
Buell' s army. A three days' battle fought there, beginning December, 
1862, ended in the defeat of Bragg. Farther west. General Curtis drove 
the Confederates south of the Arkansas River and west of the Mississippi 
during the year 1862, and at the end of that year only Vicksburg, Grand 
Gulf, and Port Hudson were left to the Confederate forces in that theater 
of war. General Butler, cooperating with naval forces under Farragut, 
in the spring of 1862, set out to capture New Orleans. Farragut bom- 
barded its defending forts, destroyed the Confederate fleet, and, by April 
25, 1862, had taken the city. General Butler marched into it and held 
it till the end of the war. 

The year 1862 had not given the Unionist forces much hope in the 

186 



GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

eastern theater of fighting. The Northern populace was demanding that 
the army take Richmond. McClellan aroused disfavor because he failed 
in the attempt and did not agree with the Administration's plan for the 
move. The fighting here was to take place on the peninsula formed by 
Chesapeake Bay and the James River, which gave these operations the 
name of the Peninsula Campaign. It was finally settled that McClellan 
was to go from Washington to Fortress Monroe by water, and then march 
up the peninsula to Richmond, where he was to be joined by McDowell. 
McDowell was to arrive there by marching from Fredericksburg. To pre- 
vent an attack by the Confederates upon Washington from the west, Gen- 
erals Fremont and Banks were to operate in the Shenandoah Valley. The 
fear of attack on Washington hampered Unionist operations throughout 
the war. It was a favorite move of the Confederate generals to threaten 
the capital whenever they wished to draw Unionist forces from Virginia. 

General Joseph E. Johnston gave McClellan battle when the latter 
landed at the southern end of the Peninsula, while General T. J. Jack- 
son ("Stonewall" Jackson) prevented McDowell from joining McClellan 
by raiding the Shenandoah, driving the force of General Banks into Mary- 
land, and escaping southward before he could be apprehended by Fremont 
or McDowell. Jackson won four hard battles in a little over a month 
and so alarmed the authorities at Washington that they ordered the force 
of McDowell to be held in northern Virginia. McClellan was left to his 
own resources and support; he went up to within eight miles of Richmond, 
by following the Chickahominy River, and defeated Johnston at the bat- 
tle of Fair Oaks on May 31, 1862. That commander was now replaced 
by General Robert E. Lee, who, in cooperation with Jackson, gave battle 
to McClellan at Mechanicsville and Gains Mill and forced him, on July 
1, 1862, to retreat to Harrison's Landing; he remained there until Au- 
gust and then was ordered to take up a position on the Potomac River. 

It was at this time that Halleck arrived from the West to take 
command of the Union forces. A new Unionist army, under General 
Pope, covered a line running along the Rappahannock and Rapidan Riv- 
ers to the Shenandoah Valley; this was attacked by Lee, who defeated 
General Banks on the Rapidan, moved against Pope at the second battle 
of Bull Run, and sent the Unionist forces back to Washington, there to 
be joined by those of McClellan. Crossing into Maryland, Lee was de- 
feated by McClellan at the battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862, and 
returned to Virginia. McClellan was removed in favor of General Burn- 
side, who moved against the fortifications at Fredericksburg Heights, De- 
cember 13, 1862, and went into winter quarters after a bloody defeat 
there. 

18T 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Lincoln now issued the Emancipation Proclamation, on September 
22, 1862, declaring free all slaves in territory at war with the Union, 
thus placating the discontented Northerners by making the war turn on 
the slavery question and giving it a moral sanction, and also thwarting 
the plans of European governments, which were about to recognize South-, 
ern sovereignty. He knew that the common people in Europe would not 
support action by their governments which showed any sympathy with 
the institution of slavery. The proclamation was, therefore, strictly a 
measure of war. 

The spring of 1863 was to see renewed activity by the armies on 
both sides. Burnside was succeeded by "Fighting Joe" Hooker, who led 
his force against Lee and met defeat at Chancellorsville on May 4, 1863. 
Lee now decided to take the offensive and went into Pennsylvania by way 
of the Shenandoah and a crossing of the Potomac. A small detachment of 
Confederate soldiers, having gone into the little town of Gettysburg, Penn- 
sylvania, for shoes, accidently met and fought with an equally small de- 
tachment of Federal troops. The commanders of the larger armies — 
for General Meade, a successor of Hooker, had followed Lee — Shearing 
the firing, sent small reinforcements to these small detachments. More 
and more reinforcements were sent by each side, so that the accidental 
meeting of the original detachments on July 1, 1863, developed into a 
three days' battle — the greatest battle ever fought on American soil. Lee 
was defeated and on July 4, 1863, with his army, was again on his way 
south. The first attempt at raiding Northern States had ended in failure. 

Independence Day, 1863, brought more news to Washington, for on 
that day Vicksburg had surrendered to Grant after seven weeks of siege. 
When Fort Hudson surrendered on July 9, 1863, the Mississippi River 
was open to Federal use from one end to another, and the Confederacy was 
cut in half. 

The business of the Unionist armies in the West was now to force 
the Confederates eastward. Rosecrans, while Grant was operating 
against Vicksburg, advanced against Bragg, defeating him south of Mur- 
freesboro and compelling him to retreat into northern Georgia; Rose- 
crans defeated Bragg again at Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863 
— mainly through the splendid generalship of his subordinate, George H. 
Thomas — and then retired to Chattanooga. Rosecrans was here suc- 
ceeded by Thomas, and the army was saved from starvation by the arrival 
of an arm)^ coming from Virginia in command of General Hooker. Bragg 
had followed Rosecrans' army to Chattanooga, but was now to be de- 
feated by Thomas in the battle of Lookout Mountain, or the Battle in the 

188 




CAPTURE OF FORT (iEOHGE IN WAR OF 1812 — Desperate charge against the fort on Ni.igara 

River — It was captured by the American troops under General Dearborn after a 

daring attack on May 27. ISl."^ — Its defenders were taken prisoners. 




MASSACRE ul- 1 tilM MI.MAl.s i.N WAR OK lS;iL'~This massacre of the whites by Creek Indians 

took place at the Stockade in Alabama on August .SO. 1813 — Over .500 men,' women 

and children were killed by Indians under Weathersford, a half-breed. 



GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

Clouds, November 25, 1863. Bragg retreated into northern Georgia and 
was succeeded in command by General Joseph E. Johnston. 

There were now left but two points of resistance in the hands of 
the Confederates — Dalton, Georgia, where Johnston rested with his 
army; and the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers, where Lee was win- 
tering with the army of Virginia. With the passing of the winter. Grant, 
who now held the rank of Lieutenant General, a rank held previously 
only by Washington and Winfield Scott, put into operation a scheme for 
destroying both the remaining Confederate armies. He had left Gen- 
eral Sherman in command of the armies of the West and ordered him to 
commence a drive into Georgia on the 4th day of May, 1864; he himself 
was on that day to start a campaign against Lee in Virginia. 

Sherman started on the appointed day and, with 98,000 men, moved 
against the Confederate commander, Johnston, at Dalton, Georgia. But 
Johnston was a master of the strategy of retreat and succeeded in escap- 
ing to Atlanta. Here Johnston was succeeded by General J. B. Hood, 
who, after giving battle to Sherman three times during July, 1864, left 
Atlanta and started northwestward. But Sherman was wise enough not 
to pursue him with his whole force and sent General Thomas against him. 
Thomas drove Hood into Tennessee and then rejoined Sherman at Atlanta. 
In November, 1864, with 60,000 troops, Sherman began his famous march 
from Atlanta to the sea, leaving behind him a belt of devastation sixty 
miles wide, tearing up all railroads, destroying bridges, despoiling farms 
and all property which might be useful to a pursuing army. He "pre- 
sented Savannah as a Christmas gift" to Lincoln at the end of 1864. 
Resting there for a month, he marched north, and, by March 1, 1865, 
had reached Goldsboro, North Carolina, routing an army under Hood on 
the way. 

Grant had kept his part of the agreement by marching into "the 
Wilderness," the wooded country south of the Rapidan, and after terrific 
battles reached Cold Harbor, an outer-defense of Richmond, and then took 
up his position for the siege of Petersburg from the south. He had been 
engaged in a "hammering campaign," which he determined to carry 
through to victory without regard to the great loss of men which it neces- 
sitated. 

Lee, with brilliant strategy, in order to draw Grant's forces away, 
ordered a raid made up the Shenandoah, threatening Washington, and 
chose General Jubal Early to make it. He arrived before the capital's 
fortifications and then returned to Virginia. When he attempted further 
raids, Grant sent General Sheridan into the Shenandoah to stop them, and 

191 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

this Sheridan accomplished by defeating the G^nfederates at the battle of 
Winchester, on October IQ, 1864. 

The Confederate forces were now so near annihilation that pour- 
parlers for peace were initiated. The Confederate Vice-President, Alex- 
ander H. Stephens, met Lincoln on a vessel in Hampton Roads, but the 
terms proposed by Lincoln were not acceptable, and the fighting continued. 
In the spring of 1865, Lee saw that Richmond could not hold out. Ac- 
cordingly, he evacuated the Confederate capital on April 3rd. He was 
pursued by Grant and surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, 
on April 9, 1865. On April 26th, Johnston surrendered to Sherman near 
Raleigh, North Carolina. 

The war was not decided, however, merely by the operations of 
the opposing armies. The Federal navy had been largely instrumental 
in securing the Confederate defeat. There were forty steam-propelled 
and fifty sailing vessels listed as warships of the United States when the 
war began. These were well scattered throughout the seven seas at the 
opening of hostilities, and many were out of commission, but a force was 
made available to blockade all the Confederate coasts. The remaining 
business of the navy was to capture what seaports it could, to command 
estuaries of every kind — river mouths, bays, etc., — to open the Mississippi 
with the aid of the army and to destroy all ships flying the Confeder- 
ate flag. 

The blockade was declared on April 19, 1861, and was successful 
from the start. This had great strategic influence, for the South had no 
ships to bring to it munitions of war, which it could not produce because 
of the lack of mills and factories characteristic of agricultural regions. 
In addition, the South could be impoverished by stopping shipment of 
its great cotton crop to the customary buyers in Europe. The embar- 
rassing feature about the blockade was that it caused hardship in Eng- 
land, where thousands starved when the cotton-mills could no longer ob- 
tain raw cotton. This induced the British Government to seek relief by 
aiding the South in breaking down the blockade and bringing a quick end- 
ing to the war. 

Blockade-running, of course, became profitable. The South tried 
retaliation by sending out commerce destroyers to prey on Unionist 
merchantmen, and was aided in these operations by England. The cruis- 
ers Florida^ Alabama, and Shenandoah were built in British seaports, fitted 
out there, and sailed to attack American ships — a breach of neutrality 
on the part of England which was settled long after the war by her pay- 
ment of an indemnity. The cruiser Wachusett captured the Florida in 
the harbor of Bahia, Brazil ; and the Alabama was defeated by the Kear' 

192 



GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

sarge off the coast of France, near Cherbourg, June 19, 1864, in one of 
the most famous battles in marine history. The Shenatidoah went uncap- 
tured during the entire war and with the end of the Confederacy returned 
to England. 

In the defense of their rivers the Confederates devised a new type 
of fighting ship. Cutting down the hulls of several sailing vessels, they 
covered what remained of them with sheet iron or railway ties, thus 
making them almost invulnerable against the cannon of the day. These 
ironclads, as they were called, could ram and sink the enemies' ships with 
ease, and the Southerners used them for that purpose with great success. 
This was the beginning of the ironclad. The most famous of them was 
the Merrimac. To stop her depredations, the Federalists sent to Hamp- 
ton Roads the craft named the Monitor. This ship was built mostly under 
water; it had an iron deck like a raft and mounted a revolving turret car- 
rying two guns. It was said to be like "a cheese-box on a raft.'* These 
two odd boats met in combat in Hampton Roads on the morning of 
April 9, 1862, and fought a drawn battle. It had a great result, never- 
theless, for by the next morning every wooden fighting ship throughout 
the world was obsolete — the ironclad age had dawned. 

The surrender of Lee and of Johnston brought about the fall of the 
Confederacy. No treaty brought the war to an end, for the Federal vic- 
tory had established as law the assertion of Lincoln that the Union still 
existed. It had been finally settled that no State could lawfully secede 
from the Union. In money the war had cost heavily. The national 
debt stood at $90,000,000 in 1861 before the firing on Sumter; it stood 
at $1,109,000,000, plus the $90,000,000, by August 31, 1865. The 
States and municipalities had contracted debts to the amount of $468,000,- 
000 through the war. Six billion dollars more were to be laid out by 
the Federal Government from the time that Lee surrendered to 1879. 
The cost in money to the South was incalculable; most of the fighting 
had taken place on Southern soil, and the damage resulting to property 
cannot even be estimated. The loss from the emancipation of slaves came 
to at least $2,000,000,000. The cost of the American Civil War has 
been estimated at $10,000,000,000 in money — a total of $30,000,000,- 
000 with all the economic losses. 

But the loss in men was even more serious, and more to be regretted 
because both sides were of the same nationality. The highest number of 
men in the Unionist uniform at any one time was 1,000,516, and the total 
enlistment for the four years for the North cam^e to more than 2,000,000. 
The Federals lost a total of 67,000 men killed in battle, 43,000 who 
died of wounds, 230,000 who died of disease, exposure, and other causes. 

193 



AIMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

The number in the Confederate army has never been accurately estimated, 
but is probably nearly 1,000,000 men. The losses probably were as 
large as on the Northern side. Thus the war brought death to 700,000 
American men. It settled forever, however, a great world problem and 
united the American people into an indissoluble Union — now and forever. 

War With Spain — ''America for Humanity'' 

WAR with Spain — this is the fifth great American war — the dis- 
coverer of the Western World. Throughout the Nineteenth 
Century the islanders in Cuba were agitating for independence 
from Spain, following the successful attempts made by Mexico and the 
countries in South America. A sixth attempt was started in 1895, ^^"^ 
such severity was resorted to by Spain to suppress the spirit of freedom 
that it stirred up the feelings of the American people. Money and food 
were sent to the Cubans, and attempts were made to induce Congress to 
recognize their belligerent rights. Hatred for the repressive measures 
of Spain grew intense in the United States. It was brought to a climax 
when the battleship Maine^ while lying in Havana Harbor, was blown up 
on February 15, 1898. It has never been determined whether this was 
done by Spaniards or by Cuban patriots who wished to precipitate action 
on the part of the United States. But public opinion demanded that the 
United States restore peace in Cuba. This could be done only by driv- 
ing Spain from the island. War was declared on April 21, 1898, and 
$50,000,000 was voted by Congress to carry it through. Volunteers were 
called for, and 200,000 men enlisted. 

Commodore George Dewey, who was at Hongkong with an Amer- 
ican fleet, was ordered to proceed to the Philippine Islands — Spanish pos- 
sessions. The fleet under Rear-Admiral Sampson was sent to Cuban 
waters. Dewey destroyed a Spanish fleet in Manila harbor and then 
blockaded the city, May 1, 1898. Sampson found the Atlantic fleet of 
the Spaniards in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, and, after keeping it 
bottled up there, fought it on its attempt to get away to sea. He de- 
stroyed the fleet and took its admiral, Cervera, prisoner, on July 3, 1898. 
Cervera had attempted to flee when the city of Santiago was about to fall 
into the hands of the American land forces operating in the island. Gen- 
eral Shafter, with 18,000 men, after fighting the battles of El Caney and 
San Juan Hill, July 1-3, was ready to take the city itself. It was oc- 
cupied by American troops on July 14, 1898. General Miles was then 
,sent with a force to capture Porto Rico, which he did with little trou- 
ble. Spain was now willing to consider peace negotiations, and a protocol 
v/as signed on August 12, 1898, but, before word of the cessation of hos- 

194 




BATTLE OF VERA CRUZ IN WAR WITH MEXICO — This War was the first in history, lasting 

two yeai-s, in which no defeat was sustained by one party and no victory 

won by the other — Vera Cruz was captured, March 27, 1847. 




BATTLE OP CERRO GORDO IN WAR WITH MEXICO— Gen. Scott on his march from Vera 

Cruz to City of Mexico stormed the fortress, bristling with batteries 1,000 feet 

above the river and routed Santa Anna on April 17, 1847. 




4'.V«" 





BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS IN AMERICAN CIVIL WAR— This painting shows Admiral Farragut 

on the Flagship Hartford," running the fire of the Confederate forts at daybreak, with 

ship in flames — This victory prevented Napoleon from recognizing the Confederacy. 








HEROIC MOMENTS IN GREAT AMERICAN WARS— Famous Civil War Painting- by Overend, 

immortalizing- in American Art the heroic adventure of Admiral Farragut in the naval 

tight between the Federal and Confederate fleets on the Mississippi River in 1862. 




BATTLS OF BUBNA VISTA IN MEXICAN WAR — Here Gen. Zachary Taylor, after fearful 

slaughter, routed the Mexicans on November 23, 1846— Santa Anna fell back 

and his utterly dispirited army was almost dissolved. 




BATTLE OF MOLINO DEL KEY IN WAR WITH MEXICO — .Here the Americans under General 

Scott fought a desperate battle on September 8th, 1847, on the march to Mexico 

City — Six days later victorious army entered the capital. 



GREAT AMERICAN WARS 

tilitics could reach the Far East, the American land forces under Gen- 
eral Merritt and the fleet under Dewey closed in on Manila and took 
that city. 

The final treaty of peace was signed at Paris, December lo, 1898. 
By its terms Spain gave up claim to Cuba, Porto Rico, Guam (an island 
in the Pacific), and the Philippines. For public works in the latter she 
received $20,000,000. Cuba was later to be set up as an independent 
republic, but the other territories were to become part of the American 
domain. Some years were spent in suppressing native insurrections in 
the Philippines, but peace was finally restored, and the islands entered on 
a new era of civilization and prosperity. It was the Spanish War, more- 
over, that broke the chains of provincialism in America and brought the 
United States before all the nations as a world power. 

America, therefore, has not been a warless nation. It has been 
forced to fight its way up from the wilderness; it purchased its freedom 
with blood; it established its integrity with blood; it secured its freedom 
on the seas with blood; it expanded its dominion of freedom with blood; 
it emancipated its slaves and established national unity with blood ; it took 
its stand for humanity and stepped out as a world power with blood. But 
it may be said that the Americans have never instigated a war; they have 
never fought a war for self-aggrandizement; they have never lost a war. 
Every American war has been for the furtherance of civilization and the 
betterment of humanity. 



199 



PART III CHAPTER V 

GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

"Necessity is the mother of invention"— Farqtthar. 



THE Epoch-builder of civilization Is not the discoverer, nor the 
statesman, nor the soldier — it is the inventor. He is the "super- 
man" who adapts the labors of all to the needs and utility of 
the people. Moreover, government and law — the whole ethical 
system of society — may be changed by a single invention. The telephone 
and the telegraph, the steamship and railroad — all American inventions 
except the last named — have had a larger effect upon human progress than 
all the world's wars. Electricity — an American discovery — is a more 
potent force in the world's advancement to-day than statecraft. 

The seven wonders of the ancient world were the towering pyramids 
of Egypt, the wonderful light-house, or Pharos, in Egypt, the Hanging 
Gardens of Babylon, the beautiful temple of Diana at Ephesus, the statue 
of Jupiter by Phidias, the sumptuous mausoleum of Artemisia, and the 
bronze Colossus of Rhodes. We look back with awe and admiration at 
the seven wonders of the Middle Ages; there we see the stately coliseum 
of Rome, the catacombs of Alexandria, the great wall of China, the cele- 
brated Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, the leaning tower of Pisa, the 
porcelain tower of Nankin, and the mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinople. 

It is interesting to contrast these with the wonders of the modern 
world: the wireless messages which speak from the sea and air; the tele- 
phone which hurls the human voice across the continents; the aeroplane in 
which men travel through the clouds, the phonograph, the motion pictures, 
the innumerable inventions that are daily proving the genius of man ; the 
great scientific discoveries such as radium, antiseptics and antitoxins, 
spectrum analysis, and X-rays ; and the gigantic engineering achievements 
that typify our present civilization. 

America, if it had never accomplished any other service to humanity 
than the inventions which it has contributed, could well claim distinction 
as the greatest force in the world's progress. On this foundation, the 
American people have earned recognition as the foremost race among the 
nations. We are a nation of Inventors; we are millionaires in Inventions. 
The Patent Office has issued in excess of a million patents out of a total 
of three million for the whole world. We breathe invention in the very 

201 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

air. Every day we are giving some new idea, great or small, to the world. 
It is America first and the rest seldom to be considered; in a single year 
when 35,807 patents were issued in this country, Germany stood second 
with but 1,083, ^^^ England third with 894, the list retrograding till we 
reach two apiece from Turkey and Costa Rica, and one each from Portugal, 
China, and Chile. 

What have the great American inventions done for the human race*? 
First, they have liberated the human race. To-day it takes about 50,000,- 
000 people out of the 1,600,000,000 on this planet to manufacture the 
world's merchandise. Without American inventions, it would take the 
hands of 1,000,000,000 or nearly two-thirds of all the people, working ten 
hours a day, to manufacture this merchandise. And all the men and horses 
in the world and all the sailing ships could not transport the products of the 
farms, the mines, and the shops that American inventions have made pos- 
sible. If it were not for American inventions the human race would be re- 
duced to a state of economic slavery. 

American inventions have enlarged the earth (or rather its power) 
many fold. They have multiplied the energy of the people of the earth 
by over 1,000 in transportation; by over twenty in manufacturing; and 
over fifteen in farming and mining. They have enormously enlarged the 
mental forces of the whole world, and have reduced the globe to a girdle 
of thirty minutes in communication. Since Benjamin Franklin "snatched 
the lightning from the heavens and the sceptre from the hands of the op- 
pressor," American inventors have given to the world epoch-making inven- 
tions which have done more than all the preceding thousand years to shape 
the course of history. 

The American inventor brought the world into communication; he 
girdled the world with the steamship; he lights the world. The American 
inventor harvests, threshes, grinds, and bakes the bread of the world. He 
makes the blank paper from the mountain spruce, flashes the news of the 
world to it, and prints it thereon. He types the world's letters. He has 
taken the tired horse away and put in his place the rubber tire and the 
automatic-car. He has laid down the rail around the globe that holds to 
the track the thundering express train with a speed of sixty miles an hour. 
He pumps the rivers and gives sanitation to great cities. He grips and 
brakes the railroad trains from head-on destruction. He has given the 
world the iron-bellied ship and the torpedo that destroys it. He has put 
into the hands of the man in the trench the breech-loading gun. His steam 
shovels cut the channels of the great canals. He makes midnight turn 
into the light of day. He penetrates the secrets of the clouds, the fogs, 
the winds and the calm azure blue, and tells the farmer when to cut and 

202 




AVFinrV'S CONOT'FST or THE \IU— Tlio airship begins with the discoveries by Prof. Samuel 
AMEUU A S (^ONQT ES 1 ^>|j,;^J,',,J;j/,"/„,,i,,,i T^he fir.t fucoessful flights^ m modern 

aeroplanes were made by Orville and \\ilbur ^^ right in IJOS. 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

take in his hay, and the ship at sea the weather ahead. He carries the 
vibrant voice of man's lips to his fellows' ears across the vast spaces of 
light and darkness. He immortalizes a world-renowned singer's voice and 
sends it to the peoples of the earth. He wings the central blue and carries 
a sword of battle to the clouds and drops it upon the naked head of a city. 
He gives every son and daughter of Adam a cotton shirt and sews the cloth. 

American genius has done all these things and many more, for the 
clock scarcely strikes an hour when someone in this country does not invent 
something. Americans have invented more than half of all the useful in- 
ventions of the world. Before Americans began to invent in earnest, 
Europeans had from the days of Pericles invented not more than a dozen 
great things, among them, movable type, the galvanic battery, the telescope, 
the steam-engine, the power-loom and the spinning jenny. The power- 
loom and the spinning-jenny never would have been developed without 
Whitney's cotton-gin. 

It was the American Inventor that forged the key to the Great War 
in Europe, for that key, according to David Lloyd-George, is the machine- 
tool. The United States Government gave Eli Whitney, the inventor of 
the cotton-gin, an order to manufacture 10,000 muskets for the army. It 
was then that he invented a machine for making the duplicate parts of the 
gun. He was the father of the machine tool — and not until about twenty 
years ago did Germany adopt this American idea that has made her a land 
of annihilating machinery. The machine-tool is the key to America's 
supremacy in invention, for every great American inventor since the days 
of Whitney has inherited it. 

Every great American invention with its human element is an absorb- 
ing romance. Among the immortal engineer inventors are John and 
Robert Stevens, Fulton, Ericsson, Shaw, Langley, Westinghouse, and the 
Wright brothers. Among the famous mechanics are Howe, Morse, Edison, 
Bell, Whitney, Sholes, Hotchkiss, Mergenthaler, Reynolds, and McCor- 
mick. Among those who made new discoveries in chemistry are Goodyear 
and Tilghman. And towering even above these was that supreme scien- 
tific mind, Benjamin Franklin, the father of American science and inven- 
tion. His mind went down to fundamental principles, and he identified 
lightning with electricity and brought the whole scientific world to direct 
electricity into practical channels. America's debt to Franklin is greater 
than its debt to Washington or Columbus. 

On all the seas of the world there are nearly 5,000,000 tons of steam- 
shipping afloat, as we observe in the chapter on commerce. This vast 
navy, with its passenger service for the earth's travel, with its hundreds of 
millions of dollars of cargo, and with its giant naval armament, was all 

205 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

brought into this world by the inventions of three Americans — Robert 
Fulton, Colonel John Stevens, and John Ericsson. Fulton had given the 
steamboat and the submarine to the world in the first decade of the Nine- 
teenth Century. The next long step was inevitable in the invention of the 
screw-propeller by Stevens, which forever sealed the doom of the sailing 
vessel and completed the conquest of the ocean by steam. There was but 
one more long, distinct step in invention to be taken to arrive at the great 
floating steel fortresses and ocean grayhounds which we have to-day, and 
that step was also taken by Ericsson, in the famous Monitor of our Civil 
War. So it was an American that harnessed steam in a ship; it was an 
American who first made the steamship stake control of the seas ; and it was 
an American that made possible a liner of 50,000 tons and 1,000 feet in 
length, with her flexible steel sides, the modern conqueror of the world's 
commerce. From the brains of Fulton, John Stevens, and Ericsson have 
come not alone the world's commerce but also the present terror of the 
seas, the submarine. 

It was Fulton's steamboat that threw open the Mississippi and the 
Missouri Rivers in the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century and made the 
Great Valley and Middle West a land of reality to the American people 
soon after the Louisiana Purchase. The American continent owes its con- 
quest in the first place to the steamboat. 

There are now 600,000 miles of railroads in the world, which repre- 
sents about $40,000,000,000, as discussed in the chapter on railroads. If 
the inventions of two Americans, Robert Stevens, and George Westing- 
house, had not come to crown the inventions of Watt and Stephenson, this 
railroad mileage equaling a distance of twenty-four times the circumference 
of the globe, could never have been built. The cost of its construction 
would have bankrupted the world, and would have destroyed more life 
than war. American inventive genius has not only made the modern rail- 
road possible, but has given it all the efficiency and safety that it possesses. 

It was an American, Robert Stevens, the son of Colonel John Stevens, 
who perceived that a train of cars would never attain a speed of more than 
ten to fifteen miles an hour on the then flat iron rails without rurming oif. 
Out of this pressing necessity for both speed and safety, he conceived the 
cross section or T rail which called for the flanged wheel. Stephenson's 
engine could pull the train. Robert Stevens' T rail fixed the cars to the 
track up to a certain limit of speed and scored a tremendous advance in 
railroading. It fixed the pace and safety of the middle of the Nineteenth 
Century in America and Europe. But, while the driver of the locomotive 
might run his train as fast as the traffic on the road would permit, a fifty 
mile an hour express train was an impossibility. The railroad was limited. 

206 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

It must be swamped by the growth of travel and shipping. Then it was 
that, in the memory of men living, George Westinghouse put the full con- 
trol of the car-wheels into the hands of the man in the cab by means of the 
air-brake lever and the age of railroading entered upon the modern era. 

American Genius Revolutionized the World with the Telegraph 

AMERICA gave to the world the power of communication by elec- 
tricity. The telegraph stands as a mighty memorial to Ameri- 
can genius, virtually holding together with its web of copper 
wire the whole structure of modern civilization. Its sensitive nerves 
stretch from city to city, from hamlet to hamlet, wherever there is a pre- 
tense of civilization, welding the whole world into a common brotherhood 
of intelligence. It is the hand-servant of every progressive industry. 
Many could not exist without it. Think of the newspaper without its 
telegraph wires, the railroads, the business world, the armies, the navies, 
the governments, or any other phase of our modern life. The mammoth 
railroad system of the earth never could have been developed without the 
telegraph. The telegraph is the eyes and ears of the railroad, for the 
railroad is as dependent on these as a man on his senses for the protection 
of his body. 

There are now 325,000 miles of telegraph wires over which were sent 
last year 90,000,000 messages. Some of these lines have more than a 
hundred separate wires and are attached to instruments sending as fast as 
twelve words to the second. These 90,000,000 messages range from a 
page of 7,000 words in a newspaper to the short ten word message. If all 
these messages were only of ten words in length, they would amount to 
900,000,000. If they average 100 words they would rise to 9,000,000,- 
000. They do probably average 50 words for there is now an immense 
service of long cheap night letters and the volume of business of the press 
associations and special news is growing at a rapid rate. This vast 
aggregate of messages does not include the business of the railroads. 

Within the last five years the words sent over the telegraph wires 
within the United States would more than fill every book in the New York 
Public Library. It would rival the number of words in the books of the 
British Museum. These messages are coming by the tens of thousands at 
every tick of the watch in the twenty-four hours of the day, and the 
young army of 60,000 messenger boys are delivering them in ten thousand 
cities, towns and hamlets in this country. These telegraph messengers 
visit more people in a day than any other group of employees not even 
excepting the postmen. 

A single American telegraph company has a sufficient length of wires 

207 



AI^IERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

woven all over the United States to form three telegraph systems, allowing 
two wires to each, to reach to the moon. Even then, there would be enough 
left to wrap eight times around the earth at the Equator. Even this would 
not use it all, and the balance would form a line from New York, across 
Europe and Asia and beyond to San Francisco. There are about 100,000,- 
000 people in our nation; if these telegraph wires were divided equally 
among the Americans, each one, irrespective of age or sex, would have a 
line 8,37 feet long. This one company has more telegraph offices in this 
country than there are dwellings in the State of Nevada. 

The wizardry of the telegraph was well tested when Great Britain's 
ruler, King Edward, died at midnight of May 6th, 1910. In New York 
the people on the streets read of his death four hours before that time. 
This is accounted for by the difference in time between London and New 
York and the genius of the telegraph. Compare this with the experience of 
our grandfathers and you can understand what the electric telegraph means 
to modern civilization. In their generation, King William IV, great- 
uncle of Edward, died co-incidentally with the birth of the electro-magnetic 
telegraph. The news did not reach this country until about three weeks 
had passed, though swift messengers carried the news to the seaside, from 
whence steamships raced across the Atlantic. 

It is hardly necessary to mention the name of the inventor of the 
telegraph — it is a household word. To tell the development of the idea 
of the telegraph is to relate the history of civilization. From the time man 
began to write or communicate, he strove to increase the distances. The 
word telegraph, taken from the Greek language, literally means "far writ- 
ing." History tells of the Greeks signalling by torch, oif the Romans' fleet 
messengers, and of Napoleon's semaphores. It tells how electricity was 
discovered, and how scientists discovered many new uses for it, and de- 
veloped those elements which the American genius of the telegraph was to 
have at his command enabling him to send messages over a copper wire to 
almost any distance. To-day one can telegraph around the earth within 
thirty minutes. 

The man who placed the world under obligation to him for permitting 
it to flash a letter to China, or a million dollar business contract to Russia 
or Timbuctoo, was Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph pen- 
cil. As a boy, he had studied Franklin's discovery that electricity could be 
conveyed by a metal rod or wire. But he dropped the subject and became a 
painter of portraits, and for a time eked out an existence with his brush. 
Then his friend, Freeman Dana, interested him. in electro magnetism and 
led him to investigate the subject. On the way back from Europe, where 
he had gone to study electrical science, he developed the idea of a small 

208 




ATIILKTK" SPOUTS IX AMKItlCA— (illmpso of 70.000 iifop!,- watchins,- a football {jamc at the 
famous "bowl" at Yale University — The National game of the American people is base- 
hall — Athletic contests are important events in various parts of the country. 




GREAl UXIVERSITli':s OF MIDDLE WEST — I niversity of Chicago has more than 8,000 students 
— The present institution was chartered in IS'.io — Women are admitted to all depart- 
ments of the University — First to establish a university extension course. 




(larser t°f°g^™p„'n,inj.o and British Honduras)— Admitted in 18-0. 




-- ",^?^~^^-rlSrS.ESHS#S "■"' 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

telegraphic apparatus with notations. He reached Washington and asked 
Congress to aid him in constructing a telegraph line between that city and 
Baltimore. Both England and France refused him a patent. He had be- 
come penniless, but he fought Congress until, five years later, it granted 
him an appropriation to build a line between Baltimore and Washington. 
His first message, "What hath God wrought *?" was flashed across the wire 
in 1844. Congress was unable to appreciate the value of the telegraph 
and the Postmaster-General declared that the revenue could not be made 
equal to the money necessary to construct the lines. Hence, the invention 
was developed by private ownership and the telegraph property in the 
United States alone is worth to-day over $500,000,000. 

The laying of the mighty Atlantic cable is a familiar story to the 
average American. It is this great telegraphic agent which has literally 
swept away the watery barrier to the conveying of information between the 
New World and the Old. Another of these great wizards is the Wireless 
telegraph, a name synonymous with that of its invention, Marconi, an 
Italian, who is working out his problem in America. Seldom is it the for- 
tune of the inventions to have such dramatic baptisms as that which at- 
tended the introduction of the wireless telegraph to an incredulous world. 
Everyone recalls how its mysterious electric spark leaped out of the dark 
night from the deck of the foundering Republic, when she was rammed by 
the Florida in 1909, circled in eddying waves from the depths of the sea 
to the Nantucket shore and to those vessels equipped with wireless ap- 
paratus and within range of its appeal, and how help was rushed to the 
sinking ship in time to rescue more than a thousand lives from a watery 
grave. That was but one of the many services it renders to humanity, 
as men become more acquainted with its powers. It was in 1913 that the 
world was again astonished by its powers. Then the mighty Government 
station at Arlington, in the shadow of the National Capitol, succeeded in 
sending and receiving a message from Italy on tlie Mediterranean. 

American Genius Hurls Human Voice Over the Earth — the Telephone 

THEN comes the telephone to hurl the human voice around the 
earth. The telephone is an extension of the telegraph but in 
the United States the child has outgrown its father, and this 
country has more telephones than all England, Germany and France com- 
bined. The telephone is more American in its origin than even the tele- 
graph. It was not only an American that invented it but every improve- 
ment that has made the telephone what it is now, one of the most indis- 
pensable necessities of civilization, has been effected by American inventors. 
The whole world now has about 15,000,000 telephones, 10,000,000 

211 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

or two-thirds of which are in America. Germany has 1,500,000, Great 
Britain 800,000, France 600,000. The length of the wire used throughout 
the world is 80,000,000 miles. Of this mileage the United States had 
16,000,000 miles last year. Over this world mileage 25,000,000 conver- 
sations passed, 15,000,000 of which were in this country. 

Nowhere else does the telephone work so fast as it does in America. 
It takes a man in Paris seven and one-half times as long to speak to another 
man over the telephone as it does in New York. In New York the average 
time is eleven seconds while the Parisian has to wait one minute and twenty- 
eight seconds. New York now beats London within the Metropolitan dis- 
tricts but to nearby towns London holds the record. In long distance calls 
as far as Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis and Atlanta, New York ranks first. 
It takes Rome an hour to reach Berlin, or Berlin half an hour to reach 
Vienna. After 9 p. m. long distance telephony is closed between the 
smaller cities of Europe. You may thus see the value of time in America 
as compared to Europe. 

New York now has more than 800,000 telephones, London 300,000, 
Berlin 200,000, Paris 100,000. New York's 5,000,000 population has 
200,000 more telephones than 12,000,000 population of the three first 
cities of Europe. New York now calls over the telephone 2,500,000 times 
every day. New York is the telephone capital of the world. So depend- 
ent is business on telephones that if all the telephones were to stop for 
twenty-four hours there would be a panic. In the two telephone systems 
in America more than $1,000,000,000 are invested. The salaried em- 
ployees number 35,000 — the salaries $25,000,000 per year. The wage 
earners 125,000, the wages paid $62,000,000, the income is $200,000,000. 

The name, literally meaning "a voice from afar" is taken from the 
Greek. It developed from one of those accidental discoveries; Alexander 
Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, were experimenting with a 
multiple telegraph in 1875 '^^ Boston, when the latter, standing before one 
of the telegraph instruments, suddenly heard Bell's voice as though the 
speaker were at his elbow, though actually he was in another part of the 
shop. They investigated and were startled to find that they had solved 
the principle of conveying speech by telegraph, as they first called it. It 
is for that wonderful discovery that Bell's name will ring down through the 
ages. He accomplished what hundreds of other scientists had tried to do 
since Sir Charles Wheatstone, the English scientist, began the pioneer ex- 
periments in the same year that the first steamship, the Savannah^ crossed 
the Atlantic, 1819. 

Among other great inventors working on this problem were Edison, 
Bell, Gray and Dolbar. Bell discovered the fundamental principles of 

212 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

transmitting and receiving the human voice. Every valuable improve- 
ment made on Bell's model is American; they are the transmitter, the 
instrument ridding the wire of the sound of the earth noise, the invention 
of the switchboard, the discovery of the phantom circuit, the hardening of 
the copper wire so that it would stand up on long distances and magnetiz- 
ing it so as to increase its efficiency. Every one of these discoveries was an 
achievement of great magnitude for as a result long distance telephony has 
come. 

When we speak of the telephone our earth is not large enough to allow 
adequate comparisons. Mars' luminous rays of light are something like 
35,000,000 miles away from the earth when it is nearest to us. The 
telephone wires radiating throughout the world are long enough to reach 
to Mars and back to the earth again, and there would still be 6,000,000 
miles left with which to drape festoons to the moon. Of this the United 
States has about one-sixth strung throughout the nation, from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific and from the Gulf to the Canadian border. Each year a 
forest of over a million trees is leveled to supply the poles we require for 
new systems and to replace old poles. 

Modern business could not be conducted in its modern proportions 
without the telephone. There are in the New York Stock Exchange nearly 
6^0 private telephones, over which each of the brokers sends at least 
50,000 cryptic messages, involving millions of dollars, every twelve-month. 
Think of what it means to the modern newspaper. One metropolitan 
paper has twenty trunk lines and eighty telephones, over which are dis- 
patched 200,000 calls, and 300,000 more are received every year. It has 
revolutionized the reportorial end of the industry; one reporter runs for 
the news, and then telephones it in to another who writes it. The tele- 
phone has become as indispensable in modern warfare as the artillery itself. 
Witness, in the Russo-Japanese War, the battle of Mukden, where 150 
miles of telephone wire stretched across the field between the 100-mile 
crescent of Japanese soldiers storming the foe and the Japanese generals 
standing miles in the rear, but directing the assaults as clearly and ac- 
curately as though they stood at the head of their troops. It also performs 
a great secret part in the European War. To take the telephone away 
from the business world would be to stop its ears and cut out its tongue. 
It would paralyze every great modern center on the earth. 

The telephone is now entering upon a new era — the age of wireless 
telephony. Messages were sent during 1915 across the continent and 
across the oceans on sound waves. The time is probably coming when 
the human voice will be hurled around the earth. This is the next 
progressive step in the development of telephony. 

213 . 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

American Genius Lights the World's Cities 

IT Is the Americans that solved the problem of ''turning night into the 
lightness of day." Darkness is driven from the face of the earth 
wherever or whenever we decide to do it. By the mere touch of the 
finger on a button whole cities are aroused from their slumbers into a blaze 
of light, and lie before us like fairylands. The Creator made the sun to 
shine by day, and the moon and stars to shine by night. And man dis- 
covered that what work he had to do must be done by day. He, the Cre- 
ator, also made man tremendously ambitious. Moreover, He endowed 
him with the power to work out the solution of his own happiness. 

Man soon came to feel that night was somewhat of a burden to him. 
When the sun had set there was nothing for him to do but sit in darkness 
or go to sleep. So he decided to see what he could do to make light for 
himself; and his success has been astounding. By the time of the Pharaohs, 
bundles of wood were being dipped in grease to make flaming torches. 
Then, a thousand years later, some shrewd person invented candles. Wax 
candles began to appear at great State functions and at religious cere- 
monials. The candle consisted of a reed that had been coated with fat. 
This was held in an iron clamp, so that the burning end would be kept 
upright. When it was desired to obtain more light from the one candle, 
both ends were lighted. From this came the phrase, "burning the candle 
at both ends." After a while, men learned to refine tallow, and this solved 
the candle problem. But the ingenuity of man never ceases. About this 
time someone created a crude device for burning a wick soaked with grease 
or oil. It was called a lamp. 

The first lamp was a hollowed receptacle. It was made of stone, a 
gourd, a shell, or a piece of bone. Oil or refined grease was poured into 
the hollow. A wick of moss or other vegetable matter was used to absorb 
the grease. The tip of the wick was then lighted and gave a glowing 
flame. The Greeks and Romans substituted metal receptacles. With 
their artistic capabilities they were able to make lamps of very beautiful 
designs. It was an American, Benjamin Franklin, who first proposed the 
hempen wick, but lamps were still without chimneys. One day a French- 
man was holding a bottle near a lamp. The bottom of the bottle was 
suddenly cracked off by the heat, and his fingers were burned. Quickly 
setting the bottomless bottle down, he placed it accidentally over the burn- 
ing wick. He was amazed as he saw the effect. The light immediately 
grew brighter and burned more steadily. From that day onward we have 
had lamp chimneys. The chimney lamp was supposed to be a wonderful 
invention, and no doubt it was ; but to-day we regard it as a most primitive 

214 




STATE CAPITOL AT COxXCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE— This State has an area of 9, .'Ml square 

miles (larger than the Republic of Salvador)' — Its population is 4;!0,r>7:i (larger than 

South Australia) — Original State admitted in 1788. 




STATE CAI'ITOL AT MONTPELIER. \ KKMONT— This State has an area of 9.504 square mil 
(larger than Porto Rico and Alsace-Lorraine) — Its population is 355,956 
(larger than Abyssinia) — Admitted to the Union in 1791. 




STATE CAPITOL AT IIAItTFOnH, C'OXXECTICTTT — This Stato lias an area of 4.965 square 

miles (larger than British Island of Jamaira) — Its population is 1,114,576 

(larger than New Zealand) — Original State in 1788. 




STATE i'Al'lTUL AT I'KOVIDENCE. KFIODE ISLANI)^ — ^This State has an area of ],24S square 

miles (nearly as large as Luxemburg and Hong Kong combined) — Its population is 

542,610 (nearly as larger as liepublic of Honduras)— Original State in 1700, 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

thing. It requires much cleaning and care; the wick had to be trimmed 
regularly, and the chimney was broken with discouraging frequency. 
With the discovery of oil and kerosene came the dangers of exploding and 
catching fire. Thousands of lives were sacrificed through accidents with 
chimney lamps, and nothing was ever discovered which would make them 
safer. 

American inventive genius found the solution. It was in 1865 that 
Professor T. S. C. Lowe, who had already won fame for his aeronautical 
exploits in the Civil War, discovered how to get water gas from coal. 
That same year he erected the first central gas plant in the world. The 
gas, after it was generated, was sent into an immense tank, and from this 
it was distributed by iron piping to homes and factories. Gas lighting 
as an institution owes its greatest development to Americans. It was 
thought at that time that this was the last great improvement that could 
possibly be made in connection with artificial lighting. It was only neces- 
sary to turn a stop-cock and apply a match — and there was illumination. 
The cost was not great and the convenience was wonderful. Gas lighting 
was at first a luxury to be found only in mansions and palaces. Soon it 
was put in even modest homes, and the streets began to be lighted by it. 

But the last word in lighting had not yet been said. The time was 
to come when gas light was to be as old-fashioned as candle light. It was 
in 1879 that the American wizard of wizards, Thomas A. Edison, revealed 
the secret. He took a glass bulb from which the air had been drawn. 
Then he placed a filament of carbon in it so arranged that an electric cur- 
rent could be passed through it. Behind, the filament burst into light and 
glowed brightly. This was the first electric light for practical home pur- 
poses. It was made to give a light equal to about eight candles. The 
old-fashioned gas jet gave about that amount of light, so it now had a rival. 

The world figuratively sat up and rubbed its eyes. For the first time 
in the history of civilization, man was in possession of a practical light 
that was not produced by combustion of anything. It burned, or rather 
glowed, without the slightest flicker; there was no smoke; it gave off very 
little heat, and it would not be blown out. All that was needed to carry 
it into any house was a double line of wire that could be very easily strung 
from the central power plant. Now, for the time, rural districts as well 
as cities could be brought into the new "darkless age." Gas lighting had 
never been practical except in cities, and the farmer still was forced to use 
oil lamps — until the coming of the electric light. 

The great modern city, with its tens of thousands of night workers, 
would be well-nigh impossible without electric light. It has reduced crime 
in the streets of great cities fifteen per cent, and increased the service of 

217 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

the streets at night thirty per cent. The first electric street light was the 
invention of Charles Brush, the noted electrical engineer of Cleveland, 
Ohio. He lighted his lamp by means of a carbonized filament. The 
electric light has been further greatly improved by the substitution of the 
Tungsten filament for the carbonized filament. 

Through the electric light, man's activity has been doubled. Former 
civilizations may have excelled in some respects, but ours has seen the end 
of superstition and has shorn night of its illusions and terrors. Modem 
lighting is nothing less than magical. Gigantic chandeliers light our halls 
with even greater brilliance than comes with the daylight. Our streets are 
very nearly as bright at midnight as they are at noon. On our coasts stand 
lighthouses with beacons that may be seen fifteen miles away. In our 
forts are searchlights which may pick up and illuminate ships ten miles 
out at sea. 

Where has the world seen such magic before? A man in a power 
house turns a switch and a home many miles away is lighted. The turn 
of another switch — and the streets of a whole city with millions of in- 
habitants burst into radiance. The turn of still another switch sends a 
flood of light under the earth into the tunnels of the city where trains roar 
under the same power of electricity. Again, the turn of a switch lights up 
hundreds of miles of country roads. As late as the Eighteenth Century any 
man who had declared that such a thing might be might have been prose- 
cuted as a madman or as a practitioner to the "black art." Lincoln, as a 
boy, studied by the light of a wood fire ; yet many of his contemporaries are 
still living. In two generations the electric light has completely revolu- 
tionized the life of man. 

American Genius Immortalizes Human Voice — the Phonograph 

lERHAPS the most miraculous of all the American inventions — 
the one that raises man to the planes of immortality — is the phono- 
graph. Though mortal man may die, his voice lives forever 
through the agency of this American invention. Through its weird power 
a man's voice may sing his favorite song over his own body as it is laid in 
the grave; the wife touches a lever of this machine and again hears her 
husband's voice, though he has been buried beneath the earth for years. 
The inspiring notes of the world's greatest musicians have been captured 
and locked within this miraculous talking machine — Caruso, Patti, Calve, 
Tetrazzini, Sembrich, Paderewski, Kubelik, and scores of others have given 
their greatest masterpieces to the machine which will preserve them for 
future generations. The voice-records of the contemporary singers, musi- 
cians, and statesmen are being taken upon imperishable records, and stored 

218 




GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

In air-tight metallic cases, within hermetically sealed vaults, which are not 
to be opened for at least one hundred years. Think what it would mean to 
the American to hear the inspiring voice of Washington, as he bade fare- 
well to his officers of the American Revolution; or the thrilling voice of 
Lincoln, as it swept out over the battlefield of Gettysburg ; or the patriotic 
voice of Patrick Henry, or Henry Clay, or Webster, or Calhoun, as they 
swayed the destiny of the nation with their magical utterances. 

The invention of the phonograph is a product of Thomas A. Edison's 
genius. Its great principle is that of fixing and storing sound in dense 
matter for reproduction. The wonderful possibilities of this principle are 
not fully dreamed of as yet. Science is already aware that all matter fixes 
sound within it, but we must know how to reproduce the sound. The wall 
of a house undoubtedly contains the sound of the speech of one who spoke 
there a hundred or a thousand years ago. 

Edison invented the magic "box of wood, mechanism, and mica," as it 
has been called, in the same year that Alexander Bell completed his tele- 
phone. It was accidental, in a way, for he was working to perfect the 
sending instrument of the telegraph, when he suddenly found that he had 
almost unconsciously unearthed the secret for which scores of Europeans 
had been striving for a century. But there was one thing that stood be- 
tween him and success — the cylinder, or record, which he had wrapped with 
tin-foil and which proved unpractical. It was Alexander Bell and Sumner 
Tainter who contrived the wax record, using it on their machine, which 
they called the graphophone, in the year 1885, eight years after Edison's 
phonograph. Two years after the birth of the graphophone, the European, 
Emile Berliner, produced the gramophone. 

American Genius Regenerates Trade — the Typewriter 

IT was an American who revolutionized the whole business world, who 
increased the productivity and capacity of business more than a hun- 
dred fold when he gave to the world the typewriter. It has been the 
economic emancipator of woman — through the typewriter the American 
woman has entered into the business world as a strong factor. It gives 
employment to a feminine army larger than that with which Wellington 
crushed Napoleon at Waterloo ; or a host more numerous than that which 
was mustered under the standards of the French and Allies at Leipsic — 
said to have been the largest gathering of armed troops on a European 
battlefield until the present European War. 

The typewriter received its first public recognition at the time when 
we were celebrating our first hundredth national birthday, in 1876. It 
is only during\the past few decades that it has been in general use. To- 

219 




AMERICA; THE LAND WE LOVE 

day the modern business world is dependent upon the typewriter and could 
not continue if compelled to go back to using pens and pencils to write out 
correspondence by hand. 

The American, W. A. Burt, made the first machine in our country 
about the time we were laying our first railroads, but his machine proved 
impracticable, as did those of many of his followers. It was the American, 
Charles Latham Sholes, who has the honor of inventing the first practical 
machine, beginning his work in 1868 and spending the following eight 
years before he was successful, until finally his machine was introduced to 
the world in 1876. The first machines placed on the market were made in 
Milwaukee. The typewriter is literally the right hand of the whole busi- 
ness world. Nowhere where money goes and trade flourishes is man with- 
out the typewriter. Every language with its distinct letters has its type- 
writer, as it has its Bible. 

American Genius Emancipates Woman — the Sewing Machine 

'HAT American invention has done the most for the women of 
the entire world? The answer is plain — the sewing machine. 
It is indeed the great benefactor of woman. No invention 
has done so much to deliver woman from drudgery. No one piece of ma- 
chinery has done so much to deliver her from her burdens, her seclusion, 
her serfdom. Fifty years ago, more than half the people of Europe and 
America went barefooted half the year. The sewing machine has changed 
all that — and it has prolonged millions of lives. It has broken up harems 
in Turkey; it has lifted the veil from many feminine faces in the Orient. 
This wonderful machine, which has changed the habits and customs, and 
even the personal appearance, of the people of the earth, is the product 
of American genius and American skill. It took many minds, and more 
than a hundred years, to invent and perfect it. The history of no inven- 
tion is more replete with effort and disappointment. It is not known how 
many men tried to construct >and improve it, but there have been at least 
25,000 patents recorded on the sewing machine and its attachments. In 
this respect only the steam engine surpasses it. It was the dream of early 
England, but it required America to bring it into realization. 

The first lock-stitch machine was made in New York, in 1832, by 
Walter Hunt, but he failed to perfect his idea or to have it patented, and 
thus lost the credit and the fortune. It remained for another American, a 
farmer's boy, to give the sewing machine to a waiting world. His name 
was Elias Howe, and he was born on a farm in Spencer, Massachusetts, in 
1819. He lived with his father, working upon the land and in the grain 
mill, until he was seventeen years of age, and attended the district school 

220 




CJTATE CAPITOL AT ALBANY, NEW YORK — This State has an area of 49,204 square miles 

(larger than Ireland and Switzerland combined) — Its population is 9,113,279 (about 

equal to the I'ersian Empire) — Original State in 1788. 




STATE CAPITOL AT TRENTON, NEW JERSEY— This State has an area of 8,224 square miles 

(about equal to Saxony and Oldenburg combined) — Its population is 2,537,167 (larger 

than Norway or Polivia; — Original State admitted to Union in 1787. 




FIRST RECEPTION OF THE IIP.ST LADY OF THE RE ITRLIC-TDis historic engraving bv Seitz portrays tlie 
brilliant reception given to Martha Washington during the inaugural of her husband as "first president 
ot the Lnited States. It was attended by the aristocracy of the New World. 




IILLIANT SCEXE IX THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY — The wifo of Washinston arrived nt the inaugural ceremonies 
accompanied by a cavalcade of gentlemen and brilliant women in carriages — The thunder of 13 cannon 
welcomed her at the battery in New York — The throngs paid her homage. 




STATK CA1'1T(JL AT rOLUMlil'S, O'lliu — This Stat(> has an area of 41,040 square miles (about 

equal to Scotland and Belgium combined) —Its population is 4,767, llil (larger 

than Greece, or Peru, o" Lulgariai — Admitted in 1S03. 




STATE CATITOI. AT IIARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA— This State has au area of 
square miles (about equal to Scotland and Denmark combined) — Its population is 
7,665,111 (about equal to Norway and Sweden) — Original State in 1787. 



45, 1 : 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

during the winters. Then he learned the trade of machinist. It was in 
1846, when Elias Howe was 27 years old, that he announced that he had 
solved the problem of the sewing-machine. 

This was the beginning of a remarkable career, in which he fought 
and overcame many obstacles. He constructed four machines and then 
went to England to introduce them into that country. He sold out his 
English rights to a corset manufacturer for a few hundred dollars and 
worked in this man's shop with his primitive machine. Two years later, 
he learned that his patents were being seriously contested in Boston and 
returned to that city. He was penniless, and for months the inventor of 
the lock-stitch needle fought with his back to the wall. He found it neces- 
sary to resume his trade as a machinist to keep his family from starving. 
Greedy inventors began to infringe his patents, and expensive lawsuits 
kept him in poverty for several years. 

It was not until 1854 ^^^^ ^^^ claims were firmly established and his 
patent rights acknowledged. Then began the royalties that were to be 
his reward. When the Civil War broke out, his heart was stirred with 
patriotism, and he enlisted as a volunteer. Honors began to pour upon 
him. He was the recipient of many medals and the Cross of the Legion 
of Honor. Twenty years after his invention, he was a millionaire, and 
his lock-stitch needle, though apparently a very simple invention, has given 
him rank as one of the world's greatest mechanical geniuses. 

Ingenious American brains finished the invention. John Bachelder, 
a well-to-do Boston merchant, was quick to perceive what Howe's machine 
needed to make it a wonder-worker. He sold his prosperous business, set 
up a machine shop, and undertook to build a machine that had a horizontal 
head-piece or table, on which the material to be sewn was supported; 
Howe's bent needle was straightened into a perpendicular one with an eye 
point; it was given a needle plate, a continuous feed, and a device for 
pressing down the cloth while in the vicinity of the needle — five vital 
points. With these improvements, the great American sewing-machine 
was on its way to perfection. A few years later, an improvement was 
added by Isaac Singer, a New York mechanic. Then came A. B. Wilson, 
who practically completed the leading principles of the sewing-machine. 
What have been added since are minor features and improvements. 

Thus the sewing-machine was evolved by slow degrees and at the close 
of the Civil War its sale had grown to a considerable business. It played 
its part in making clothing for soldiers in the Union Army, and a number 
of machines were smuggled across into the Confederate lines. There were 
eighty-six establishments, in thirteen States, manufacturing sewing-ma- 
chines in i860, and the output was valued at $4,000,000. The output had 

225 




AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

increased to $15,000,000 ten years later. To-day there are forty-seven 
factories in the United States, employing 20,000 workers, with an output 
of $28,000,000. 

The sewing-machine has now encircled the globe. Over ten million 
dollars' worth of machines are now exported in a single year, nearly a 
fourth of these machines going to Scotland alone. Of all the foreign na- 
tions, only the Germans have succeeded in making a machine that can 
compete with the American machine. One may now find an American 
sewing-machine in almost every civilized communit)^ on the globe. The 
peasant in Russia, the black mother in Africa, the coolie in India, the al- 
mond-eyed ladies in China — all have American sewing-machines to-day. 

American Genius Solves World's Food Problem — Agricultural 

Implements 

MERICAN inventive genius solved the food problem for the 
peoples of the earth. At the beginning of the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury, when our modern farm machinery was not known, ninety- 
seven per cent, of the Americans were compelled to work farms to raise 
enough food for themselves and stock. Then there were only six cities with 
populations of over 8,000. One century later, through our modern farm 
machinery, only thirty-seven per cent, of the Americans were required to 
work the farms, and they were producing not only ten bushels of wheat for 
every American, but were also able to export farm products valued at 
$950,000,000. The remaining sixty-three per cent, of our population, 
released from farm work by modern machinery, were able to live and work 
in the urban districts, and, at the close of the century, had reared 484 
cities each of whose populations exceeded 8,000 people. 

The first practical reaping machine had its birth down on a small farm 
in Rockridge County, in Virginia. On this same farm, Robert McCor- 
mick had attempted to solve the problem, but it remained for his son, 
Cyrus H. McCormick, to make the first practical machine, in 1831. 
Though crude in workmanship, it embraced all the essential features of the 
modern machine — the divider to separate the standing grain from that to 
be cut, the revolving reel to press the grain against the cutting blades, and 
the platform between the two wheels on which the sheaves fell, ready to 
be bound by hand. At this time, that other great machine, the thresher, 
was in its formative stage, being known as the "ground hog" thresher. Six 
years after the birth of the reaper, the Maine inventors, Hiram and John 
Pitts, patented their machine of endless belts and beaters, which separated 
the grain from the straw and chaff and cleaned it. This was improved 
upon by Cyrus Roberts, of Illinois, in 1856, and it is this machine which 

226 



I GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

embraces the chief features of the modern machine. But the problem was 
not yet fully solved. Without Case's wheat-thresher the bulk of the great 
wheat crop would rot in the chaff and straw. All the old-fashioned flails, 
and treadmills and crude threshers of fifty years ago could not thresh a 
third of it. Case made the first model of his machine in a farmhouse near 
Racine, Wisconsin. His first device united the thresher to the separator, 
and to-day that machine and its like made the great wheat elevator what 
it is. The third great harvesting machine, the automatic twine-bind- 
ing harvester, was the invention of John F. Appleby, of Wisconsin, and 
appeared about the year 1880. To-day these three wonderful machines 
are combined into one and are harvesting the great grain fields of the Pa- 
cific slope, while the same machines, as separate units, are traveling in 
batteries of twenty to forty over the wheat fields of the Dakotas and mid- 
Western States. 

It is an inspiring sight to watch the harvest of wheat in the San 
Joaquin Valley of California, for instance. Yellow as gold, with the 
sheen of the sea, the field billows from sky-line to sky-line. Here comes 
the huge combination harvester, either drawn by a modem tractor engine 
or scores of horses. In the latter case, the driver is perched upon what 
seems to be a ladder thrust at right angles from the ground and out over 
the horses' backs. At the right side of the machine is seen flashing in the 
sunlight what appears like a frail, old-fashioned mill-wheel, but is in 
reality the revolving reel which captures the grain and holds it until the 
knives have performed their work. Under the reel is an endless belt, which 
receives the cut grain and conveys it into the mysterious interior of the 
machine, where it is threshed, cleaned, and poured into sacks. The chaff 
and straw pass in another direction. Thus the machine goes, cutting a 
swath fourteen feet wide, performing the work of 150 horses under old- 
time conditions and leveling each acre of wheat at the average cost of fifty 
cents — a fraction of the cost by old-fashioned methods. 

The farm machinery and implements of the United States represented, 
in 1912, an investment of over $1,000,000,000 — a sum sufficient to pay 
the expenses of running the entire Government for a year. In the course 
of an argument before the Commissioner of Patents, it was declared that 
the McCormick reaper was worth $55,000,000 a year to this country. So 
valuable was this patent that its extension was refused McCormick, but 
with improvements on the original patent, the McCormick works in Chi- 
cago were founded and now turn out more than 100,000 reapers a year. 
The world's great wheat crop of over 5,000,000,000 is all practically 
harvested with this American reaper. 

Then came John Stevens ; he discovered that he could get twenty-five 

227 



AMERICA: THE LAND :WE LOVE 

per cent, white flour from a stone smoothly dressed, while a rough stone 
would give him only ten per cent. The supply of burrstone was limited, 
and the idea occurred to him to use smooth corrugated iron rollers. After 
much trouble and expense, he had the iron roller made according to his 
idea. When he got his system into operation, it doubled the output from 
the same power, and he was able to secure ninety per cent, of good flour. 
Thus we have the roller-mill, now used the world over and undoubtedly 
one of the greatest American inventions. 

It is the plow, perhaps, that tells the story of civilization more elo- 
quently than any other agency having to do with the building of nations. 
It is interesting to note that, in this age of American forty-gang plows 
drawn by machinery, the ancient plow of the Babylonians and Egyptians 
still turns the furrow in various parts of the world. The ancient forked 
stick, drawn by camels or oxen, still plows the plains of Sharon, outside of 
Palestine, just as a similar instrument turns the earth in the highlands of 
Mexico, or even on the farms of Mohave Indians in our own Southwest. 

There are legions of American plowmen, probably 10,000,000, who 
go into the fields every spring and with their modern plows turn up empires 
of rich earth. 

In the decade preceding the oeginning of the American Civil War, 
American plowmen were most all using the English wooden moldboard 
plow, equipped with an iron point. At that time they were plowing an 
area of land which was larger than the entire country of Sweden. Sixty 
years later, the era of modern plows had dawned, and our plowmen were 
turning over every year an area four times greater, or nearly as large as the 
whole of Mexico. Our crops in that time increased from about $2,000,- 
000,000 to nearly $10,000,000,000. That is the magic of the modern 
plow, without which these tremendous crops could never have been 
planted. 

Two years before the first complete railroad joined the Mississippi 
with the Atlantic, the real secret of the plow had been discovered. This 
genius was the American, James Oliver, of Indiana, who began, in the year 
1855, t^ manufacture his famous chilled iron plow, which successfully 
resisted the wearing power of the earth and automatically scoured itself, 
as it passed under the ground. While Grant was besieging Petersburg in 
the American Civil War, the first steam plow was operated in America. 
Two plows were used first, and then more added, until ten, twenty, and 
even thirty plows were hauled by one engine cutting parallel furrows. 
Then the climax was reached when recently forty-four plows were attached 
and turned up the same number of furrows in any kind of soil. This 
mighty machine, operated by only two men, can do more work than was 

' 228 





B I 






Yi tin Yr^i'TA-''>t% 



■^^fe^^*»*i*M^ 



■^•: 




iSTATE CAPITOL AT LANSING, MICHIGAN— Tliis State has an area of n7,9S0 square miles 

(about equal to Greece anrt Relsium combined t— Population 2.Sin,l7:^ (about 

equal to Norw^ay and Orange Free State combined) — Admitted in 1837. 



jii** 




Jt\ ItHSmmi^tmim 



] ■ li I %\ 



"s:. 



ppiii 






STATK CAPITOL AT :\IADlSON, WISCONSIN — ^Tliis State has an area of no.ncr, square miles 

(larger than Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark. European Turke.y combined) — 

its population is :;,333,860 (larger than Norway) — Admitted in 1848, 




STATE TAPITOL AT SPRINGFIELD, IT.l.I X< li S - Tliis Stato has an area of M\.c>t;7, square 

miles (nearly equal to Greece and Belsium combiner!) — Its population is 5,038,591 

(larsrer than Kingdoni of Sweden) — Admitted to the Union in 1818. 




STATE I'AriTOL AT INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA — This State has an area of 36,354 square 

miles (larger than Portugal) — Its population is 2.700.876 (about ecjual to 

the Republic of Venezuela) — Admitted to the Union in 1816. 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

done formerly by forty-four men and eighty-eight horses. It travels at 
the average rate of twenty-five miles a day. 

This is the wonderful machine which has made possible the vast wheat 
fields of Western America. In the springtime it is an inspiring sight to 
look upon the monster "caterpillar," as it is familiarly called, starting to 
turn a 30,000-acre field. It often performs three operations at once. 
Behind the tractor engine come the plows, steadily performing their work, 
while attached behind them are modern harrows to smooth the upturned 
earth, and behind the harrows come the mechanical seeders, dropping the 
grain in the furrow. 

American Genius Inaugurates New Epoch — the Cotton Gin 

ANOTHER great epoch-maker in American inventions is the cot- 
ton-gin, the machine that revolutionized the whole economic 
system of the nation and made cotton one of the world's greatest 
crops — a crop upon which the financial condition of the nation is largely 
dependent. The story of the cotton-gin is the revelation of the develop- 
ment and prosperity of the Great South. Its development is the develop- 
ment of the South; its wealth is the wealth of the Southern people. And 
we owe it all to the genius of that American — Eli Whitney, the Massachu- 
setts tutor — to whom the South pays deep homage. Wherever you go in 
our great cotton belt, which sweeps from the Atlantic to the far borders of 
old Mexico, you will find the same cotton-gin, in essential points, that 
Whitney invented while residing in the family of our distinguished South- 
ern lady, Mrs. General Greene, wife of the Revolutionary hero, in South 
Carolina. He brought it into this world a completed machine, which 
countless mechanics have been unable to improve upon, one of the few 
great creations which have this distinction. His gin was completed in 
1784, two years after the first government coining mint was opened in 
Philadelphia. 

The cotton-gin is a simple machine, but it Is in Its simplicity that Its 
greatest value lies. For ages planters had been growing cotton, but the 
picking out of the seeds was an endless task and prohibited cotton culture 
on great scales. The Hindus and the Chinese are said to have had a crude 
machine which is known as the "churka." What the cotton-gin means to 
the South, and of course to the world, Is revealed in the fact that, before 
Whitney invented it, the Southern States produced only about 2,000,000 
pounds in 1 790. One hundred and twenty years later, the crop amounted 
to 6,000,000,000 pounds, or three thousand times as much. In 1793, the 
year in which Whitney devised his gin, 5,000,000 pounds of cotton were 
grown in America. In 1825, the year of Whitney's death, the cotton ex- 

231 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

ported from the United States was valued at $36,846,000, and all other 
exports at $30,094,000. In 1913, the American cotton crop was worth 
a round $1,000,000,000. We supply three-quarters of the world's 133,- 
000,000 spindles with cotton which is valued at $700,000,000, a sum 
nearly as great as that which the Russians had in their state and postal 
savings banks in 1912. Cotton is the world's great commodity; it is as 
standard as gold. It has been estimated that, if all the cotton bales pro- 
duced in a year were stood on end to form a column, it would reach nearly 
9,000 miles high, or it would require a solid train of freight cars, each 
loaded to full capacity, numbering about 138,000 cars, to move them. 

American Genius Utilizes Rubber Forests — Process of Vulcanization 

AMERICA revealed to the world the secret of the utilization of 
rubber by the process of vulcanization. This developed one of 
the greatest and most indispensable industries. So valuable is 
rubber the chemists have spent years of toil in trying to manufacture it 
synthetically, and they have succeeded, but not for commercial purposes. 
Rubber in great quantities is used in almost every industry. Fifty million 
dollars are spent annually for the rubber tires on automobiles alone. 
Without them the automobile age would be impossible. Every one of 
these cars that spins over the globe to-day for whatever purpose is a monu- 
ment to an American chemist inventor who struggled for years and nearly 
starved before he succeeded in vulcanizing raw rubber. 

This was Goodyear, of Connecticut. After many efforts to vulcanize 
rubber, that is, to make it resist the hardening chemical process in water 
and melting in the heat of the sun, he succeeded by accidentally dropping 
some nitric acid on it. This made the rubber soft, pliable, flexible, and 
resisting to the hardening and melting processes. It was one of those 
accidents due to long patience and hard work in experimenting. This dis- 
covery made possible the great rubber industry and the great automobile 
rubber-tire industry of the world. 

American Genius Inaugurates the Paper Age — Pulp Processes 

MODERN pulp paper is an American product. It was from 
Tilghman's discovery that the wood-pulp industry arose and 
has done so much to make the American newspaper what it is 
to-day. Until less than a short generation ago every newspaper was made 
of rags, and a copy of a paper with its comparatively meager news was a 
luxury. Now one has only to leam to read to have all that can be read. 
There is no great product so cheap as a newspaper. Without paper the 
modern world would be literally impossible. It has become a great part 

232 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

of our social and business life. We use it for our money; we use it to send 
our news into every part of the earth ; we use it to conduct the great stream 
of business correspondence which is the foundation of the whole commer- 
cial world to-day. It is the basis of our schools ; it is the keystone of our 
system of law and justice; it is the medium of expression for our religions. 

The world has passed through several so-called "ages" — but the pres- 
ent period may well be called the "paper age." We are slowly eating up 
our forests to turn them into paper. We are using nearly 5,000,000 cords 
of wood this year to make paper. One metropolitan Sunday paper will 
use 100 tons of paper, which requires for its manufacture 125 cords of 
wood, enough standing timber to cover six acres. Thousands of square 
miles of forests are being cut down to feed our paper mills. This is re- 
sulting in drying up our rivers and even checking our rainfall. At the 
rate with which the forests are disappearing since the coming of the 
"paper age" it is only a question of years before the supply will be ex- 
hausted. 

The paper mills of the United States are turning out over 5,000,000 
tons of their product every year. Its commercial value is over $300,000,- 
coo, or more than twice that of all the gold and silver mined annually in 
this country. There are 90,000 people working in the paper mills. The 
total horse-power required to operate these mills was 1,034,2655 exceeding 
the horse-power of the cotton industry and approaching that of iron and 
steel. It is estimated that 2,400,000 tons of this paper become absolute 
waste within three or four years, representing a waste of $10,000,000 per 
year. The United States produces and consumes more paper than any 
other country in the world. 

American Genius Revolutionizes Printing — Modern Presses 

THE modern rapid printing press is an American development. 
We have taken the Gutenberg invention and adapted it to the 
needs of modern times — and especially the great American news- 
paper. It is a remarkable advance from the press which Johann Guten- 
berg used In the year 1450 to print the first book, a Bible containing thirty- 
six lines. In the year 1814, the publishers of the London Ti^nes astonished 
the world by printing 800 papers in an hour on the steam printing press 
which Frederich Koenig, a Saxon, invented. Compare that with what our 
modern printing presses are doing every day in some of our metropolitan 
newspaper offices. There in the center of the press room is a mammoth 
mechanical genius which sweeps the whole gamut of mechanical ingenuity 
— from the most delicate chronometer to the swiftest locomotive. It vir- 
tually is twelve presses combined into one. It prints, pastes loose sheets 

233 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

together, folds, counts, and stacks 160,000 sixteen page newpapers in 
an hour. 

Let us compare its marvelous speed with our great railroad engines. 
The distance between New York and Chicago is about 900 miles, and the 
quickest schedule time by railroad is 20 hours. Starting the printing press 
and the locomotive at the same instant, the former will have printed and 
folded and counted into newspapers more than 1,000 miles of paper before 
the locomotive has completed half of its journey to the Illinois city. The 
paper is supplied to the press from rolls, weighing about a ton apiece. 
When one roll is finished, another stands ready and is automatically pasted 
onto the end of the paper as it leaves the first roll — and this is done without 
halting the flying machinery for an instant. 

These inventions allow the American publishers to print more than 
120,000,000 copies of newspapers and periodicals in a year. That is the 
miracle which allows the newspaper and periodical publisher to sell 8, 10, 
and even 48 page publications for a cent apiece, and enables him to dis- 
tribute millions of copies throughout our nation every day — and allows 
him to publish successive editions during the day. 

The first printing press made in America came from the shop of Adam 
Ramage, in Philadelphia, in 1795. George Clymer, of Pennsylvania, 
built the first printing press capable of printing on both sides of a news- 
paper at once in 1817. Daniel Treadwell, of Boston, made the first 
American printing press operated by steam in 1822. Robert Hoe con- 
structed the type revolving press, in which the type form was arranged on 
one cylinder and made to imprint upon paper passing over smaller cylin- 
ders. Then, William Bullock, of Philadelphia, applied the principle of 
printing on both sides simultaneously to the steam press. This marked the 
dawn of the modern printing era. 

To-day the printing industry Is the sixth in importance in the United 
States. It gives employment to more than a quarter of a million people, 
and creates in a single year products valued at more than $800,000,000 — 
a sum much greater than the total value of men's clothing, or cotton goods, 
or boots and shoes. 

American Genius Gives to the World the Typesetting Machine 

"^HE Americans not only developed the modern printing press but 
solved the problem of type-setting. Johann Gutenberg, of Ger- 
many, made the first movable type about the year 1438. Guten- 
berg carved his type out of wood. His collaborator, Peter Schoffer, 
improved this method by substituting metal for wood. Four centuries 
after the birth of printing, an American watchmaker, Ottmar Mergcn- 

234 



1 




STATE CAPITOL AT ANNAPOLIS. MARYLAND— This State has an area of 12.327 square 

miles (larger than Belgium) — Its population is 1,295,346 

(larger than Porto Rico) — Ori.srinal State in 1788. 




STATE CAPITOL AT DOVER, DELAWARE — This State has an area of 2,370 square miles 

(twice the area of Zans^ihar) — Its population is 202,322 (larger than Island 

of Hawaii) — Original State in 1787. 




STATE CAPITOL AT RICiniOND, VIRGINIA— This State has an area of 42,027 SQuare miles 

(larger than Scotland and Belgium) — Its population is 2.061,612 (nearly as 

lars'e as Kingdom of Norway) — Original State in 17*'*. 




STATE CAPITOL AT CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA— This State has an area of 24,170 square 

miles (larger than Belgium and Netherlands) — Its population is 1,221,119 

(larger than New Zealand) — Admitted to the Union in 1863. 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

thaler, revolutionized the printing industry with his marvelous linotype, 
which transformed cold metal into solid lines of type-matter. For more 
than three-quarters of a century, the world's greatest mechanicians had 
struggled with the problem. 

Mergenthaler's linotype is an invention that has won a fortune for the 
poor German immigrant, with only $30.00 in his pocket on landing. It 
has made the cheap book a reality the world over and has multiplied the 
power of the printing press. The modern linotype is more intelligent and 
accurate than the average human typesetter. The machine resembles, 
roughly speaking, a small pipe organ of iron and steel, with a typewriter 
set in position where the organ's keyboard would be. Before this keyboard 
the operator sits operating the keys and following the manuscript which 
hangs before him. Every time he presses a key, a little mould in which 
that particular letter is to be cast takes its place beside the preceding letter 
in an assembler. When the line of moulds is complete, a bell warns the 
operator and he begins a new line. The completed line of moulds is auto- 
matically carried by the machine to a pot of liquid metal. Here a little 
pump forces the metal into the moulds, and the type are cast. When the 
letters are solidified into a solid line of type as it will appear on the printed 
page, the line, or "slug," drops into its proper position in a frame, or "gal- 
ley," and this, when full, is carried away to the composing room tables. 
In the meantime, the moulds have returned to their first position and are 
ready to make another journey through the linotype. Thus the modem 
linotype operator can set more than 1,000 words an hour, and it is by this 
magic that a battery of linotypes can digest and reproduce in cold type the 
thousands of words that flow through a modern newspaper composing 
room in the space of a few hours. 

American Genius Creates the Modern Cities with the 'Elevators 

AMERICAN genius also conceived that wonderful contrivance, 
called the elevator, which has made great business structures pos- 
sible. Without these steel cages, that plunge up nearly a thou- 
sand feet and then fall again like meteors from the sky, we should still 
be living on the ground in low, sprawling structures that would require 
a whole state to house the people of one of our large cities. It is the ele- 
vator that has made it possible to erect million dollar buildings on seventy- 
foot plots of land, and has caused our cities to expand vertically instead 
of horizontally. 

The first American elevator was built by George H. Fox in 1850. 
It was operated by means of a vertical screw, the butt carrying the cage. 
But the "father of the elevator" is Elisha G. Otis, v;ho, three years later, 

237 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

exhibited an improved invention at the World's Fair in the Crystal Palace 
in New York. Otis was a Vermont farm boy, whose Yankee inventiveness 
had first led him to improve agricultural machinery. He became a suc- 
cessful carriage builder. His chief claim to fame is the elevator. It was 
invented by him at the age of forty- two. The year 1871 saw the first hy- 
draulic elevator. It held the field jointly with the steam elevator, until 
the electric elevator came into use about 1888. It plays no small part in 
the development of our civilization. 

American Genius Develops Photography — the Kodak 

A D ^HE modern camera is an American development. Through this 

I adaptation of an earlier invention, the earth has been brought be- 

-•«- fore our eyes, the faces of the peoples of all nations are preserved 

for the generations. It is one of the greatest factors in our modern life. 

To-day we can sit among our photographs and look at the world's events. 

Photography began with Giambattista della Porta, an Italian philos- 
opher, in the latter half of the Sixteenth Century. A German, J. H. 
Schultze, in 1727, has become known as the "Columbus of photography," 
and obtained the first actual photographic copies of writing. Various ex- 
periments were made with chloride of silver, but little progress was made 
until, in 1814, Joseph Niepce, a Frenchman, succeeded in producing per- 
manent pictures by a process which he called heliography. Another 
Frenchman, Daguerre, in 1832, invented the famous process, called 
"daguerrotype," which consisted in exposing a metal plate covered with sil- 
ver solution. Subsequently, he developed in a darkened room the im- 
pression, which was rendered permanent by special chemical treatment. 

But the first actual photograph ever taken was by an American, John 
W. Draper, in 1840. Up to that time metal alone had been employed in 
photography but, about 1850, sensitized paper began to be used, and the 
era of modern photography commenced. Since then that art has been per- 
fected in various ways, and it has become intimately connected with many 
sciences, especially physiology and astronomy. 

The important American development is the "kodak" or hand camera, 
which first appeared in 1888. That which led the way to the introduc- 
tion of the kodak and the displacement of glass plates as a necessity in 
photography, was the invention of the "film." This arrangement made 
daylight photography and practically revolutionized the art. The kodak 
has popularized photography. The instrument is capable of instantaneous, 
jtime exposure, landscape, portraiture, flash light, and panorama work. 
The kodak has played an important part in illustrating war scenes. It 
was used in the war in Cuba, in South Africa, in the Philippines, in Corea 

238 



GREAT AMERICAN INVENTIONS 

and Manchuria. One of the great weeklies reports that ninety per cent, of 
the war pictures were upon films. 

American Genius Solves Problem of Aerial Navigation 

MAN'S conquest of the air practically dates from the year 1908. 
It was in that year that man stepped forth, as though from a 
chrysalis, with full-grown wings. It was then that he slipped 
those fetters which had bound his feet to the earth for countless ages, so 
that now he can consort with the feathered creatures of the heavens; or 
he can sport with the condor and the eagle in their mountain-top aeries 
— the beginning of the aerial age. For long ages flight had been a dream. 
The philosophers said that it could never be accomplished, but it seethed 
in the brain of certain adventurous inventors, and at last it has come. 

It remained for American genius to discover the fallacy of the New- 
tonian law, and, after he succeeded in disproving it under actual experi- 
ments, it was only a question of a few years when the heavier than air 
flying-machine should become a realized dream. That man was the late 
Professor Samuel Langley, of the Smithsonian Institute. He learned by 
actual experiments how much horse-power was needed to sustain a sur- 
face of given weight by means of its motion through the air. To accom- 
plish this, he erected a huge whirling table in the open air at Allegheny, 
Pennsylvania, driven by a steam-engine. The outer end of its revolving 
ami swept through a circumference of 200 feet and could be made to 
travel as fast as seventy miles an hour. It soon was discovered that the 
faster a thing traveled, the less weight was required to sustain it. A 
brass plate weighing a pound at least was found to weigh only an ounce 
when carried by a fast motion, and, the faster the table whirled, the less 
power it took to make the plate move. On the basis of this discovery, 
Professor Langley constructed his aeroplane, whose practicability has since 
been demonstrated. 

The real conquerors of the air were the two American brothers, Or- 
vllle and Wilbur Wright. Just after the death of Otto Lilienthal, the 
German experimenter, who only partially succeeded in building a heavier- 
than-air machine that would float, these two Americans, then manufactur- 
ers of bicycles, began to experiment in 1898. Five years afterward, the 
birds fluttering around the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, 
were startled when a machine flew from the ground, and a throbbing motor 
carried the aviator a few hundred feet through the air. The next years 
they spent in perfecting their machine, and the world was astonished to 
learn that Orville Wright had made a successful flight, in 1908, remain- 
ing in the air one hour and fourteen minutes. That was the beginning 

239 




AMERICAN GENIUS SEVERS THE CONTINENTS— This is a glimpse of the Panama Canal, 

connecting Atlantic and Pacific Oceans — a triumph in modern engineering — This canal 

changes course of much of world's commerce- It has cost a'lout ij^oT'i.OOO.OOO. 





FIRST SHIPS TO PASS THROUGH PANAMA CANAL — The ship on the left is the first 

commercial steamer to pass through the locks — On the right we see the first battleship 

passing through the canal — ^The canal was formally opened in 1915. 



PART III CHAPTER VI 

AMERICAN 
TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 



An the means of action — 
The shapeless mass, the materials — 
Lie everywhere about us, what we need 
Is the celestial fire to change the flint 
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear 
That fire is genius ! 

—Longfellow. 



CIVILIZATION has been created largely by the hands of men. 
It is a plastic substance that is molded by the fingers into images 
and structures that typify their ideals and ideas. It is the con- 
crete expression of soul and intellect. Great achievements — 
the handiwork which each generation leaves behind it — are the truest in- 
dexes to the status of their civilization. 

The Americans are a constructive — not a destructive people. Not 
only has their inventive genius brought forth many epoch-making crea- 
tions, but their conquest of material obstacles is surpassed by that of no 
other race. No achievement is too great for them to undertake; no diffi- 
culty seems to hold them dismayed; they do not hesitate to attempt to re- 
move the "impossible" and transmute it into the "possible." Thus they 
bridge rivers, undermine or tunnel mountains, sever continents, and make 
the arid desert fertile by the indomitability of modem engineering. 

The greatest of all American achievements is the Panama Canal, 
the greatest of all the engineering conquests in the annals of man ; a per- 
petual memorial to the American courage and genius that triumphed 
where all other nations feared to tread and where one, the most resource- 
ful of all, had gone down in defeat. Here, the Americans by might and 
will severed the Western Hemisphere into two continents; by the magic 
of American skill and courage the waters of the two greatest oceans were 
to rush together into perpetual wedlock. It is a new milestone in the 
march of civilization. It was a day of triumph — October loth, 1913 — 
when President Woodrow Wilson, seated in our national capitol at Wash- 
ington, pressed a button which hurled an electric impulse from the shores 
of the Potomac to the mighty Gamboa Dike, 2,000 miles away, and re- 
leased the furious power of 40 tons of dynamite which hurled the barrier 
heavenward in scattering clouds of earth and rock and leveled the last 

243 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

barrier at Panama which held apart the surging waters of the Orient and 
the Occident. 

This awe-inspiring spectacle marked the culmination of nine years 
of herculean labor. Its thundering tones echoed around the world to an- 
nounce the practical completion of the most colossal wonder of human 
creation. It proclaimed that the Americans are the greatest miracle work- 
ers of all time, and it placed the name of its chief builder, Colonel George 
Washington Goethals, a native of Brooklyn, New York, among those of 
the immortals. With his name, too, will be inscribed that of his fellow 
miracle worker. Colonel William Crawford Gorgas, the Alabamian who 
drew the deadly disease fangs from the tropics so that the workmen from 
the north could exist in the jungles where they labored. 

This mighty achievement has been the dream of four centuries. Two 
decades after Columbus landed on Watling's Island in the New World, 
Balboa, having discovered the Pacific, dreamed of a strait which would lead 
from the Atlantic to the Sea of Cathay. Then came in 1520, Angel Sseve- 
dra with the startling and visionary proposal to pierce the Isthmus of 
Darien. But when Antonio Galvao proposed thirty years later that a 
canal be cut through the Isthmus of Panama, he brought upon his head the 
wrath of the Spanish king, who then and there declared an embargo upon 
such ideas under the penalty of death. It is said that the reason was 
political. However, Spain had reconsidered its edict by the year 1821 and 
was about to begin the task when Latin America revolted and drove the 
Castilians from the Isthmus. 

The tropical Isthmus of Panama had long defied the world. It drank 
the life blood of thousands of laborers under De Lesseps, the French engi- 
neer, and it swallowed up more than $260,000,000 in money and machin- 
ery. It was in the epochal year of 1904 that a courageous band of 
American engineers swarmed down from the north to perform the miracle 
of cutting the Western Hemisphere into two continents. Armed with huge 
steam shovels and steam dredges, electric and compressed air drills, sticks 
of dynamite and powerful cranes, carrying enormous tanks of oil and 
petroleum to battle with the deadly mosquito which virtually had defeated 
the French canal diggers, they began the long conquest of nature and the 
elements. 

A paean of industry came up from the tropics, drowning out the cries 
of scoffers. The full orchestra of shovel and siren, of rendering blasts and 
crumbling mountains, silenced the criticisms. Under the leadership of the 
gallant American engineers the workers cleaved the neck of the jungle land 
and slowly cut their way from ocean to ocean. Two years before the 
fondest dreams had predicted, there lay in the words of Hudson Maxim: 

244. 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

"An ocean-way that cuts in twain a continent, 
Hewn through the mountain's primal rock, 
And through the shifting shale, the mire and mud 
And fickle sand of marsh and swamp and plain; 
That lifts and bears the burdens 
That the oceans bear in giant ships — 
A half the freighted commerce of the world." 

So it is that to-day the mighty Panama Canal changes the tide of 
commerce. It lessens the journey between the Orient and North American 
ports by thousands of miles. It brings San Francisco nearer to New York 
by 7,873 miles; Yokahoma by 3,768; Shanghai by 1,876 miles ; Valparaiso 
by 3,747 miles, and Melbourne in Australia by 2,770 miles. This mighty 
transformation brings San Francisco and other Pacific ports 7,000 miles 
nearer to Liverpool and Hamburg. It takes a vessel twelve hours to pass 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the canal, a journey of about fifty 
miles. About fifteen of these lead through that part of the canal which 
lies at sea-level, and the remaining distance through Gatun Lake, Miraflores 
Basin and the three sets of locks at about eighty feet above the surface of 
the oceans. 

A ship following in the course of the setting sun approaches through 
the Gulf of Mexico. Skirting a huge two-mile break-water which guards 
the entrance of the Canal, it enters a channel 500 feet wide and 41 feet 
deep. Scudding through Limon Bay, past the red-tiled roofs of ancient 
Colon, on the left, the ship heads direct through a low-lying garden of 
tropical verdure lying on either shore. At the end of five miles appear the 
mighty walls of Gatun locks, the most stupendous concrete structure ever 
created. 

This is the first of the series of locks which lift the heaviest ship afloat 
up into the great Gatun Lake. Its portals are guarded by massive steel 
doors seven feet thick, sixty-five feet wide, eighty-two feet high and weigh- 
ing nearly six hundred tons each ; yet they are balanced with such exquisite 
nicety that one of them could be moved by a hand thrust. Tremendous 
air-cushions help the mighty gates to hold back the tons upon tons of water 
held within the locks. 

The gates swing open. The ship passes within and is hidden from 
sight. The massive doors close again. While you are waiting for the 
inflowing water to raise you to the level of the floor of the second section 
of the locks, look about you upon the massive walls. It is a huge basin of 
concrete, 1,000 feet long and 1 10 feet wide in the clear. Beyond the huge 
wall of concrete, on your left, is an exact duplicate of this basin. This 
dividing wall is sixty feet thick, and built into it at the top is the titanic 
machinery which operates the locks. Further on in your journey you will 

245 



AMERICA: THE LAKD WE LOVE 

see the man-made Niagara which supplies the power in the form of elec- 
tricity. Beneath the keel of your ship is the floor of the basin, made of 
concrete and as enduring as a mountain. 

The ship begins to move. You look up in amazement. The doors of 
the second section of the locks are swinging open. Your vessel, probably 
weighing 30,000 tons, has been magically raised twenty-eight feet while 
you were gazing in awe at the stupendous work of your fellow-Americans. 
The miracle has been performed — simply by allowing water to flow into 
the basin. The second, and the third lock section is a duplicate of the first 
except that the doors are slightly shorter and consequently weigh several 
tons less. 

What is this that greets your vision? Your ship has been pulled by 
a powerful electric locomotive running along the concrete wall. At this 
instant it sails out under its own steam into the 170 square miles of Gatun 
Lake. Here on your left, looms a great artificial hill — it is the gigantic 
Gatun Dam. The waters of the lakes are being passed off through a huge 
spill-way and into turbine engines which create the power to operate the 
machinery of the entire Panama Canal. This mighty dam stretches for 
one and two-thirds miles, looming thirty feet above the normal level of the 
lake, and is one hundred feet wide, except for a distance of one thousand 
nine hundred feet which is three hundred and seventy-five feet wide. 
About 140,000 cubic feet of water flow over the spill- way every second. 

The lake itself, nestling under the green carpeted slopes of the sur- 
rounding mountains, is large enough to accommodate the entire United 
States Naval fleet. Through this great inland sea, your ship will speed 
under its own steam for a distance of thirty-two miles until it reaches the 
closed doors of a single lock, the Pedro Miguel, which will lower the vessel 
a distance of thirty feet into Miraflores Basin. A short distance beyond, 
the ship enters the first of the two Miraflores locks and is lowered twenty- 
seven feet into the second lock which also lowers it another twenty-seven 
feet. Then the mighty steel doors are flung open. The ship is free to fly 
down the five-mile avenue leading into Panama Bay — and out into the 
waters of the Pacific Ocean. 

It required at one time 40,000 men employed in building the Panama 
Canal. Fifty-eight hundred men were employed in building the locks 
alone, and more than 57,000 tons of steel went into the manufacture of the 
lock doors. The huge Gatun locks consumed 2,000,000 barrels of cement 
— and 5,000,000 barrels were used in constructing all the locks and dams. 
Six million rivets were driven in the construction work, while 212,514,138 
cubic yards of earth, rock, mud and shale were dug out to make way for the 
new highway of commerce and travel. 

246 




GREAT SOUNDS OF THE PACIFIC — This is a viow of Pu.set Sound, on whicli Tacoma, "Tlie 

City of Destiny," is located in the State of Washington — In the distance rises 

snow-capped Mount Rainier to the height of 14,408 feet. 




CANAL OF THE (IREAT LAKES — Sault Saintc Marie Canal which connects Lake Superior with 

Lake Huron — It is hut IJ miles in length and its volume of traffic exceeds that of any 

other canal in the world — Its tonnage exceeds 18,000,000 per year. 




l'A.\I(»rS AMEHK AX IWKXTORS^ — Tliis pliotograpli presents one of tnc most iiistoric occasions in ttie 

development of the American Mation — It is the first meeting of the Naval Advisory Board of 

Inventions in October, 1915 — The Board was selected to provide plans for national defense. 




PLEDGE THEIR GENIUS TO TIIEIU COKXTUY — Here we sou the p'uins nt American industry otlcnng 
its services to the nation during the World Crisis in 1015 — At the desk sit Thomas A. Edison and 
Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy — The board consists of twenty-ttiree members. 




GIGANTIC BRIDGES AT AMEUICA-S METROrOIJS— Rrooklvn P.ridup, T.r.SO foot Ion;;; cost 

about .?124,000.0()0 — Manhattan Bridge, 6,855 feet long, cost al)out !F1.'G,000,000 — WiHiams- 

burg Bridge, 7,:J08 feet long, cost over $2:-!,00(),000 — Queensboro Bridge, 7,449 

feet long, cost about $18,000,000. 




GREAT STEEL ARCHED BRIDGE OVER THE MISSISSIPPI — .This is Eads Bridge at St. Louis, 

Missouri — It was begun in 1S(>7 and finished in 1874 — Over 600 men were prostrated 

during the work and 13 died — ^Its cost was about $6,500,000. 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

The Panama Canal cost not more than the sum estimated at the be- 
ginning of the work — $375,000,000. It is a sum greater than Spain, 
Japan and Sweden had in stocks of gold in the year that it was opened. 
It is a sum over seventy thousand times greater than that required by 
Columbus to discover the Western Hemisphere. And yet it is only about 
the estimated wealth of a single American in these days of stupendous 
fortunes. Moreover, a new Panama Canal could be built every twelve 
months with the money consumed by fire and in fighting flames every year 
in tliis country. These are days of colossal figures and tremendous 
achievement. 

Americans Build the World* s Greatest Dams 

AMERICA leads the world in great hydraulic engineering achieve- 
ments. American dam builders erect monstrous bulwarks of 
granite and concrete, — ^mighty walls ranging across rivers two 
miles wide, to flood arid lands, or to store up water for a thirsting city, or to 
create titanic power with which to turn his industrial wheels, light and heat 
his homes. 

The world's longest dam curbs the mighty Mississippi where it flows 
through the heart of our nation. It is a bulwark of adamant, completed 
in 1913, a worthy foe for the Father of Waters. This part of the Mis- 
sissippi, because of the Des Moines Rapids, was one of the most dangerous 
for navigators. Our Government has spent $8,000,000 to build a canal 
that would subdue the rapids, but in vain. To-day our great dam, stretch- 
ing between Keokuk, in Iowa, to the opposite shore, not only floods these 
rapids with sufficient water to cover their jagged spurs, but it backs up the 
river for a distance of sixty-five miles, thus forming a great inland sea and 
generating about 300,000 horse-power of electricity with which to light and 
heat, run the cars and turn the factory wheels of cities lying within one 
hundred and fifty miles of the lighting plant. It is the longest in the 
world — nearly two miles long. The power-house alone, built into the dam 
itself, is more than a third of a mile long. 

The highest dam in the world is in Wyoming. The Shoshone is 325 
feet high, or just half as high as the tallest office building in the world. 
The modem dam builders are men of great daring. They must have the 
qualities of pioneers. They frequently find themselves in the heart of 
primeval Nature, almost cut off from civilization, and must blaze their own 
wagon roads for the transportation of supplies and materials. That is 
what they did when they built the great Shoshone dam. The road ran for 
eight miles and in many places tunneled through the granite-ribbed moun- 
tains. But the greatest problem was the torrent of water plunging through 

251 



AMEKICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

the gorge they intended to dam. Its sheer sides towered 2,500 feet above 
the river and were only sixty feet apart. The river dashed through the 
gorge like a mill-race, but the engineers captured and led it through a 
temporary channel above the gorge. Then in the dry river bed they ex- 
cavated a ditch eighty-seven feet deep and one hundred and eight feet wide 
in which to lay the foundations of the dam in solid rock. On this founda- 
tion they piled the dam proper until its top reached two hundred and thirty- 
eight feet above the bed of the river. It was a stupendous task and 
consumed four years' of time, 90,000 tons of granite and 75,000 barrels of 
cement. 

The mighty Roosevelt Dam, in the Salt River Canyon, In Arizona, 
rears a bulwark of granite 276 feet high. It is a romance of civilization 
and will stand as an enduring memorial to the united efforts of white men 
and the Geronimo Indians, who built it. Like the Shoshone, it lay in the 
heart of a wilderness, but it was sixty miles from the nearest railroad, and 
this space of primeval forest and mountains had to be covered with a wagon 
road. Behind the dam to-day is a huge lake covering 16,329 acres. If 
the water were let out, it would cover an area greater than the State of 
Rhode Island a foot deep. Beneath its waters lie the remains of the little 
town of Roosevelt, which at some future day archaeologists may discover 
and learnedly speculate upon its fate. 

For many years Colorado had the highest dam in the world; that was 
the Cheesman, which blocks the south fork of the South Platte River. Be- 
hind its 225 foot granite wall lie thirty billion gallons of water, enough to 
quench the thirsts of all Americans for a year, allowing a gallon a day for 
each person. In the Catskill Mountains, in New York, there is another 
great reservoir of water, equal in capacity to Colorado's great storage 
supply. It is the Croton, which is the second highest in America, being 
297 feet high. Boston gets a great part of its water from the famous 
Wachusett Reservoir, whose dam is 207 feet high, which is equal to the 
average sixteen story skyscraping building. 

These great engineering feats prove man's control over nature. 
Whenever the necessity has arisen, he has curbed it; and when he needed 
its power, he harnessed it. The dam indeed, stands as a colossal monu- 
ment to man's subjugation of nature to his requirements. It is one of the 
proudest trophies of our civilization and through it we have to-day our 
great public water supplies. Christopher Christiansen, of Bethlehem, 
Pennsylvania, began to construct, in 1754? what was to be the first public 
,water works in America. Water was conveyed by pipes from springs to a 
cistern 350 feet away. A wooden pump forced the water from this to a 
wooden tank in the town square. In the year that George Washington died 

252 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

there were sixteen public water plants in the United States. The develop- 
ment of the system grew quickly. Streams were dammed to form reser- 
voirs to take the place of springs. Instead of the wooden pipes, metal 
ones were used. When Philadelphia fitted her water system with cast 
iron piping, in 1804, she attained the distinction of being the first city in 
the world with such equipment. London adopted it in 1820. The idea 
grew rapidly. Larger and larger reservoirs were built. The areas which 
they drained became greater. The size of the conveying pipes was in- 
creased, till finally the building of water works became one of the most 
important branches of civil engineering. 

Americans Conquer the Power of Water — Great Reservoirs 

AMERICAN cities to-day all have modem water works or artesian 
wells. The Wachusett Reservoir in Boston, contains sixty-three 
billion gallons of water, and supplies that city. The city of San 
Francisco gets its water from the San Mateo Reservoir, which holds thirty- 
one billion gallons. New York depended for years upon the Croton Res- 
ervoir, with a capacity of thirty-one billion gallons, until it was decided to 
construct near Kingston, at a distance of over seventy-five miles from New 
York City, the Ashokan Dam to hold back one hundred and twenty billion 
gallons of water. Five hundred million gallons will daily flow through a 
gigantic aqueduct that is built cross-country, over mountains and under 
the Hudson River, to bring water into the homes of the metropolis of the 
Western Continent. This stupendous system will cost $200,000,000. 
The water will have pressure enough behind it to flow up to the twenty- 
fourth floor of the skyscrapers. The deepest well in the world used for 
obtaining water is located at Putnam Heights, Windham County, Con- 
necticut. It goes down 3,848 feet and gives a supply of two gallons of 
water each minute, shooting the water four feet above the level of the 
ground. These deep wells are known as artesian wells, a name derived 
from Artois, where they were first used. Brooklyn obtains 78,000,000 gal- 
lons of water each day through artesian wells and many other towns fare 
almost as well. The city of Buffalo, New York, supplies each inhabitant 
an average of two hundred and thirty gallons of water a day ; in Pittsburg 
the average is two hundred and fifty gallons. 

Human life depends upon water, food, and air. Air we get without 
trouble ; food we get with a little more exertion ; but water we get through 
elaborate systems. Yet we must have them — for no city would be safe 
without water more than sixty days. Great fortunes are being made in 
selling water. Big corporations have gone into the business, and millions 
of dollars are invested in water companies. So great has become the in- 

253 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

dustry of supplying water that many cities have started their own reser- 
voirs, and one of the most frequently discussed phases of American politics 
is the municipal ownership of water plants — a problem that sooner or later 
must be settled in every town in the United States. 

The creation of power is one of the genii of American civilization. 
In the early years we took it out of the winds ; then we took it out of the 
rivers ; in later days we have been digging it out of the earth in the little 
black nuggets that we call "coal." Through this, we have created steam, 
gas, and electric power for our machinery and our domestic appliances. 
But in about five hundred years the world will be without coal — then what 
shall we do"? Strange to say we shall not even miss it. For we have 
already found a substitute that is inexhaustible — water. There is power 
enough in our rivers and lakes to keep the world going for ages. This 
wonderful chapter in the long story of man's conquest of Nature is just 
beginning. We are setting water to work for us ; we are turning its energy 
into power that we can use in a thousand ways for thousands of years. 
With this power we can generate electricity; and thereby we can do all 
that we have been doing by means of coal, and many new things that the 
minds of men will conceive. 

The rivers of the United States, great and small, threading their way 
everywhere through the land, contain a hidden force alone equal to about 
twenty-five million horse power. When we say "horse power," we assume 
that one horse can raise 33,000 pounds one foot per minute. Now, ten 
million such horses could run all the manufacturing establishments in the 
United States. Water power, in order of use, must be concentrated by 
violent motion. Nature provides this process in one of the most notable 
instances in Niagara Falls. The idea of "harnessing Niagara" is startling 
at first — it sounds almost sacrilegious. A protest arose when it was sug- 
gested that its waters be utilized for commercial purposes. The vision 
evoked of a Niagara run dry astounded the Americans. It is exactly what 
is said to have been foretold ages ago by an Indian — that one day the 
waters would vanish and expose the bare shelf of rock to view. That day 
of desecration has come. 

The power of Niagara is almost beyond comprehension. It pours 
over the falls twenty-five million tons of water every hour. This power 
would be sufficient to run all the trains in the country, light all the towns 
and villages, conduct our telephone and telegraph service, turn all our 
spinning wheels, and operate our three greatest industries — all at the same 
time. The power of Niagara is equal to the power that can be generated 
from all the coal taken from our mines in a day, — the power of seven 
million, five hundred thousand horses. By agreement between the United 

254. 




STATE CAI'ITOL AT RALEIGH, NORTH »'AK()L1\ \ I In- Stato lias an area of r)2,426 square 

miles (nearly equal to Netherlands and Liberia combined) — Its population is 

2.206,287 (larger than Republic of Cuba) — Original State, 1789. 




STATE CAPITOL AT COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA— This State has an area of 30,989 square 

miles (larger than Scotland) — Its population is 1,515,400 (about equal to the 

Republic of Ecuador) — Original State admitted in 1788. 




STATE CAPITOL AT ATLANTA. GEORGIA— This Stato has an area of 50.265 square miles 

(larger than England and Wales) — Its population is 2.609.121 (larger 

than the Kingdom of Norway) — Original State in 1788. 




STATE CAPITOL AT TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA— This State has an area of 5S,660 square 

miles (larger than England and Wales) — Its population is 751.139 (larger 

than South Australia) — Admitted to the Union in 1845. 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

States and Canada, the amount of water to be diverted from Niagara has 
been limited to fifty-six thousand cubic feet a second. This, without 
diminishing appreciably the flow of the cataract, will provide power equal 
to that of fourteen million tons of coal, which it requires thirty thousand 
miners, working for a year, to take out. 

The idea of "harnessing Niagara" is one of the most astounding in 
the annals of man, — because it is the solution of the great problem of the 
future. It was on October 4th, 1890, that the work began. The first 
step was to excavate a tunnel two hundred feet below the city of Niagara 
Falls. The tunnel is 7,481 feet long; the interior dimensions are twenty- 
one feet by eighteen and a half feet. It required the excavating of three 
hundred thousand tons of rock. Sixteen million bricks were used in the 
lining. The water is taken through a canal, screened to exclude floating 
ice and debris, to the generating station. The electrical energy here gen- 
erated is transmitted to a distributing station. From this station immense 
cables convey the power to various points. 

Imagine, as you gaze at the majestic waterfall rushing in its eternal 
course, that its power — its very spirit, as it were — is lighting the lamps and 
moving the street cars one hundred and sixty miles away in Syracuse. 
Around the Falls, on both the Canadian and American sides, a large manu- 
facturing district has sprung up, evoked by the magic power of these waters. 
Niagara's power is applied to-day to everything, from great steel shops and 
trolley cars to ventilating fans and sewing machines. The modern electric 
furnace has been evolved out of the water power of Niagara Falls. In 
this way, its power is making itself felt all over the land, and to the ends 
of the earth, with a vastness and complexity of operation that is be- 
wildering. 

All over the country great rivers have been harnessed; their mighty 
force is being gathered in power plants and distributed for the needs of 
industry and agriculture. The water power in actual service in the 
United States is now doing the work every year of thirty-three million tons. 
Its possibilities are vastly increased by the introduction of long distance 
transmission of electricity. You need not move to the power-plant — it 
stretches out its arms to you. 

Americans Triumph Over the Desert — Irrigation 

MAN is indeed the conqueror. One of the gre:atest of all his con- 
quests is the triumph over the deserts. Through the power of his 
brain and brawn, he has brought to fulfilment the prophecy of 
ancient times that the "wilderness shall blossom as the rose." This is no 
longer a figure of speech. 

257 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

It is only a few years since two-fifths of our territory was in the 
hands of an enemy — not more than ten years — this enemy was drought — 
and the weapon with which he is being beaten back, inch by inch, is irriga- 
tion. Vast regions, extending over the length and breadth of our Western 
States, were but waste and unproductive lands, owing to the scarcity of 
water. This lost empire is being reclaimed. It was in 1902 that a gi- 
gantic scheme was set on foot by the Government for irrigating these arid 
regions. A start was made with twenty-five projects, involving in the 
aggregate over two and a half million acres. Then began the construction 
of those magnificent works of engineering that stand as perpetual memorials 
of American skill and enterprise. One thought must have thrilled the 
engineer, as he saw the giant structure growing under his hands — what it 
meant to the surrounding land; life instead of death, fecundity in place of 
sterility, a panorama of fruitful fields and waving trees replacing arid 
wastes. 

What would be the feelings of a modern Rip Van Winkle, who had 
fallen asleep in the "Great American Desert" a dozen years ago, if he were 
to wake to-day"? He would behold a transformation appearing miracu- 
lous. Where had been a dreary expanse of arid plain, stretching bare and 
treeless to the horizon, he would behold fields of waving grain, countless 
fruit-trees laden with their luscious burden, with prosperous farm homes 
and villages lining silvery canals. In the region of the Truckee River, in 
Nevada, was a lifeless desert, strewn with the bones of animals and marked 
by the graves of countless emigrants, who, on their long and toilsome 
journey to the Pacific, had perished of thirst. It is now a region of smiling 
fields, with prosperous cities springing up among them. Four rivers have 
been linked together in a wonderful scheme of irrigation, and their waters 
spread themselves through all this land. 

The waterless valleys of California, through which the weary gold 
hunters of '49 struggled, many to drop and die of thirst almost in sight 
of their goal, have become fair vineyards and orchards and gardens, whose 
products find their way, not only to New York, but to far distant London 
and Paris. Think of what has been done in the Yakima Valley, in the 
State of Washington, where a territory of 350,000 acres has been reclaimed 
by the waters of the great Sunnyside canal. Or in the Shoshone Valley, 
where a territory of 476,000 acres is watered to a depth of one foot. On 
the "Great American Desert" in Kansas, a few years ago, as far as the eye 
could reach, there was nothing but a dreary expanse of flat, treeless prairie ; 
there was hardly any rain ; hot winds swept the country. But it was found 
that there was an abundance of water under ground. Wells were sunk, and 
the water was pumped into reservoirs by means of windmills. Monster 

258 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

crops are grown and the yield of the fruit trees is prodigious. Trees, 
indeed, grow on all sides, where trees never grew before. 

This great work of reclamation has made substantial progress. Two- 
thirds of the first scheme of twenty-five projects is completed, at a cost of 
nearly $80,000,000. When it is finished, it is proposed to start on thirteen 
further projects, dealing with over three and a half million acres. But, 
in addition, 7,000,000 acres have already been put under water by private 
enterprises. It is hoped to reclaim in time at least 30,000,000 acres. 
This would give an eighty acre farm to each of 375,000 persons. The irri- 
gation scheme has greatly affected the population of the districts in question. 
Hundreds of towns have arisen. More than 800,000 farms are now under 
irrigation. 

It is inspiring to think what this blessing of irrigation means to the 
country. A million new and prosperous American homes; the relief of the 
congestion of the cities ; billions added to the wealth of the nation. This is 
what the magic of irrigation has done and is doing, and it promises still 
greater surprises for the future. 

Afnericans Bridge the Rivers and Mountain Passes 

THE bridging of mighty rivers is another triumph of modern civiliza- 
tion. A half century ago, monster bridges did not — could not, 
exist. To-day 1,000-foot steel and iron spans demand elabo- 
rate calculations of the mathematician, the best skill of the chemist and 
metallurgist, the keen judgment of the engineer, the vast resources of the 
financier, and the mighty strength of powerful engines and the weird in- 
genuity of marvelous machine-tools directed by trained mechanics. Not 
the least requisite is the physical and moral courage of the bridge-builder. 

In this generation you will find American bridges in all parts of the 
world. They span deep rivers, lakes, harbors and ravines. They weld 
cities and states, cross international boundary lines, create and increase 
commerce and level its barriers, modify despotic political power, ameliorate 
social conditions, multiply property value many fold, and save thousands 
of lives. Long steel spans are built to sustain without a tremor the weight 
of a plunging express train as it dashes across a wide river or deep chasm. 
This type of bridge dates from about the beginning of our American Civil 
War. 

The pioneer structure in modern bridge building is the bridge which 
was thrust across the Mississippi flood at St. Louis, by James B. Eades, 
without for an instant interrupting the heavy river traffic, and before the 
science of estimating weights and pressures as they relate to bridges was 
fully understood. 

259 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

The first Niagara bridge was the first railway suspension bridge in the 
world; it was built in 1853 by John A. Roebling, when the world's greatest 
engineers were declaring that it was impossible to span the Niagara. 
Erecting two mighty masonry towers on opposite banks, Roebling slung 
four huge steel cables across and from these suspended a roadway and a 
railroad track two hundred and forty feet above the rapids. When the 
slender wire threads of the cables threatened to give out, a new bridge was 
projected, and this was the most marvelous feat of all. The new structure, 
a steel arch bridge with its arches resting on either shore, was actually 
built without disturbing traffic for more than a few minutes at a time and 
when completed had been built around the old bridge. 

When you voyage up the historic and picturesque Hudson River, you 
pass under the famous cantalever railroad bridge at Poughkeepsie, built in 
1889. To erect the five mighty spans of this structure, the engineers built 
five tiers of staging on the surface of the river, which when completed 
appeared like a modern skyscraper before its dress of brick and stone is 
applied. 

Crossing the Missouri River, at Omaha, is the world's greatest draw 
bridge with a single span of five hundred and twenty feet, while the 
longest fixed span of the type known as truss span reaches across the Ohio 
River at Louisville. 

Out in the Rocky Mountains, where our American bridge builders 
have performed some of their most magical work, is the highest bridge in 
the world. The floor of the roadway is made of glass so that the tourist 
may look down to the seething waters 2,627 ^^^^ below. This is the bridge 
in Colorado which crosses the beautiful Royal Gorge. 

In the heart of the city of Chicago are several bridges, which at the 
approach of a steamer along the Chicago River, quickly rise, just as the 
feudal baron's drawbridge did before his castle. These are known as the 
"rolling lift" bridge. Though these huge spans weigh sometimes as much 
as 5,000,000 pounds each they literally raise themselves to an upright 
position in less than a minute — it requires powerful machinery to pull them 
down again to form the bridge across the river. 

Even historic Albemarle Sound, in North Carolina, has been bridged. 
Here a railroad span runs for five continuous miles across the water between 
Edenton and Mackey's Ferry. What the North Carolinians have done, 
Calif ornians are planning to repeat. They are planning to join the cities 
of San Francisco and Oakland with a monster bridge over San Francisco 
Bay, to be nearly nine miles long. Anywhere you travel throughout our 
land you will find the magic structures of the bridge builders. They are 
made of iron or steel or of concrete. The largest of the concrete structures 

260 




l:iini J VV 




■STATE CAPITOL AT JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI — This State has an area of 46,865 square miles 

(larger than Republic of Cuba) — Its population is 1.707.114 (larger than Porto 

Kico, Hawaii, and Costa Kica combined) — ^Admitted in 1817. 




STATE CAPITOL AT MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — This State has an area of 51.998 square 

miles (larger than Republic of Nicaragua) — Its popuhition is 2,138.093 (larger 

than Republic of Cuba) — Admitted to the Union in 1819. 




STATE CAPITUL AT HT. PAUL, MINNESOTA— This Stat,- lui,. an area of 84,682 square miles 

(about equal to Greece and Ireland combined) — ^Its population Is 2 075 708 

(nearly equal to Norway) — Admitted in 1858. 




STATE CAPITOL AT DES MOINES, IOWA— This State has an area of 56,147 sauare miles 

(nearly equal to Greece and European Turkey) — Its population is 2,224,771 

(nearly equal to Republic of Bolivia) — Admitted in 1846. 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

in the world is that which our Government built in the National Capitol at 
a cost of $850,000; it is known as the Connecticut Avenue bridge and is 
fifteen hundred feet in length. 

No other city in the United States has such tremendous bridges as span 
the rivers about New York City. Here still stands the famous old Brook- 
lyn Bridge, which John Roebling completed in the year 1883, now accom- 
panied by three other larger bridges. It has been a faithful servant to the 
cities it joins. When the bridge was twenty years old it was found that fif- 
teen times as many people passed over it daily than when it was first erected. 
What it means to the cities is revealed in the fact in the year 1904 more 
people passed from shore to shore than live in the whole United States — 
about 30,000,000 more. That meant a traffic for the year of about 
120,000,000. In a single day more people passed over it than live in the 
State of Vermont, or in Lisbon. At one period of the day 54,000 people 
crossed it in an hour's time. For many years this was the world's greatest 
suspension bridge. To-day four great structures stretch across the rivers' 
connecting New York. The Queen's Bridge is, with its approaches, about 
three miles long and hangs one hundred and forty feet above the water; 
it cost about $20,000,000. 

Americans Tunnel Under Cities^ Rivers and Mountains 

THE titanic achievements wrought by American engineers culminate 
with the tunnel builders — ^piercing the hearts of mountain ranges, 
or delving beneath swollen floods, driving shafts through moun- 
tain or river so that an hour or a few miles may be taken from the time 
schedule of some transcontinental railroad. 

Modern mountain tunneling can be said to date from the year 1856. 
It was in that year that a courageous band of engineers and tunnel workers 
pitted their strength and wits against the southern spur of the Green 
Mountains in Western Massachusetts. To their aid they brought, for the 
first time in America, electricity, nitro-glycerine, air compression, and power 
rock drills. They divided into four armies, two starting on either side of 
the mountain and two more digging down from the top in the center of the 
ridge. Sixteen years later, the last smoke of the battle cleared away, and 
a yawning hole nearly five miles long led through the solid rock. It was 
about twenty feet high and wide enough to permit the laying of two rail- 
way tracks. It had been a fierce battle and it had cost nearly $1 i,ooc,ooo 
in money. But it had made possible that great railroad system now run- 
ning between Massachusetts and Troy, New York, by way of the famous 
Hoosac Tunnel. 

That was the beginning; since then the tunnel builders fearlessly at- 

263 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

tack the most unpromising project. They have burrowed a tunnel through 
the mighty Cascade Mountain Range in Northwestern Washington for a 
distance of about three miles. They have cut through the vitals of the 
Wasatch Mountains with a series of tunnels whose combined length meas- 
ures about fifty miles. In Southwestern Colorado, they have tapped the 
mountains by the famous Gunnison Tunnel, through which a former un- 
derground river is made to deliver its precious water to the surrounding 
valleys. In California the Big Bend Tunnel, two miles long, drains the 
Feather River. And now they are performing the task of driving Ameri- 
ca's longest tunnel, six and a quarter miles long, through the backbone of 
the Continental Divide in Colorado, for the purpose of saving sixty-four 
miles in the railroad journey across the continent, and twenty-three miles 
between Denver and Salt Lake City, as well as saving a 2,500-foot climb 
over the crest of the Rocky Mountains. 

The marvelous subterranean railway system of the American metropo- 
lis — the tunnels and subways of New York — are the greatest achievements 
in tunnel building. Nearly a billion people are carried underneath the city 
every year. There are nearly one hundred miles of track under New York 
and Brooklyn, and within a few years there will be four times as much 
more. The pioneer genius of this mighty achievement was the American, 
John B. MacDonald, and he spent nearly $75,000,000 in building and 
equipping the present subway. The new one will cost in the neighborhood 
of $300,000,000. Boston has an excellent subway system. And Chicago 
has a unique underground freight system underlying her business district 
and covering more than fourteen miles. It is designed to transport mer- 
chandise from warehouse to store and from store to the railroad freight 
stations. 

The greatest engineering feat was that which the young Tennessee 
lawyer, William G. McAdoo, performed when he drove his railroad tubes 
underneath the Hudson River, thus connecting New York with New Jer- 
sey. For eight years he and his engineers and "ground-hogs" pitted their 
strength against the swollen floods over their heads. Foot by foot, occa- 
sionally stopping to plaster up the roof of their tunnel where the river had 
torn through, they drove by hydraulic pressure a huge steel shield through 
rock and silt, linking together the great steel rings of the tubes as each two 
foot section was cleared away. It was a mighty battle, but in the year 
1910 the tunnel was complete and the first public train rumbled from the 
heart of New York to the shore and thence down under the great river 
and up again to the New Jersey shore. 

Like New York, Boston's suburban influx every day overtaxed her 
ferry service. Consequently, Boston has a tunnel a mile and a half long 

264 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

reaching from the city proper to East Boston and running beneath a part 
of Boston Harbor. But one of the most unique tunnel constructions con- 
nects the city of Detroit with the Canadian city of Windsor. An American 
railroad expert, William J. Wilgus, studied the peculiar problems pre- 
sented by the Detroit River, where nearly as much traffic passes as in the 
Suez Canal. He conceived the idea of dredging a furrow in the river bed, 
similar to that which the farmer plows across his field. Then the tunnel 
tubes were made in sections. These were taken out on floats to their 
proper positions and lowered into the furrow. Divers then descended and 
fastened the sections together, while concrete was later poured into the 
furrow, until the tubes rested in veritable solid rock. 

One of the most modem engineering feats is the plan of New York 
for taking its water from the Catskill Mountains. These mountains lie on 
the opposite side of the Hudson River. The problem of conducting the 
water across appeared easy until one far-sighted person suggested the 
possibility of some foe in the future being able to destroy with a single 
stick of dynamite any bridge or aqueduct erected. Out of this possibility 
grew the marvelous tunnel which carries the water underneath the river to 
the further shore. It lies like a huge syphon, in the form of the letter U, 
the perpendicular shafts delving through solid rock more than 1,000 feet 
below the river's surface. Then the lateral shaft, also dug in solid rock, 
mostly granite, strikes straight across the river to the other side and then 
upward. On its journey to the distant city the Catskill water travels 
through four other tunnels whose aggregate length is about fifteen miles, 
leading under the Rondout, Walkill and Moodna rivers and under Croton 
Lake. 

The art of tunnel building is one of the oldest of engineering sciences. 
The Egyptians and ancient tribes of India dug them to bury their noble 
dead. The Assyrians built one under the Euphrates River, by diverting 
the river through a temporary channel and returning it to its original bed 
when the tunnel had been bricked in. The greatest engineers of the ancient 
days were the Romans — while to-day the Americans are performing feats 
that give them large claims to distinction. 

Americans Erect Modern Cities of Granite and Steel 

THE Americans have done some wonderful things but their most co- 
lossal achievement is the Twentieth Century city — modern towers 
of Babel. The streets looked like canyons lying deep between 
the gigantic walls of masonry. The crowds passing through them were 
like ants in comparison — and yet they had built it with their own hands. 
We build our massive structures; lightning plays about their towers; the 

265 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

storms beat against them; the earthquakes rumble beneath them. And if 
perchance they fall, we throw them up again greater and more daring than 
before — as if to challenge nature. 

When great cities sprung into existence, becoming more and more 
crowded, a new problem began to develop. Where were all the industries, 
upon which depended the greatness of these modern cities, to be housed? 
The builders of the Middle Ages had fashioned lofty church towers only 
for the sake of beauty. Now it was necessary to raise tall structures be- 
cause there was no room to spread them over the ground — they must reach 
up toward the skies, where space is illimitable. Land was becoming very 
scarce in great cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Men saw 
the only way to build tall structures was to use steel. So, about 1880, a 
new era was inaugurated — and America became a leader in a new kind of 
architecture. Huge skeletons of steel were erected, and these supported 
everything within and without; about them were built the gigantic walls of 
masonry. These huge buildings were first regarded with doubt but soon 
they ceased to be an experiment and the new age of the skyscraper was 
ushered in. The skylines of the cities assumed a majestic ruggedness. 
Each builder strove to outdo the others. The twenty-story structure was 
soon overshadowed by the building of thirty stories. Soon came defiant 
structures of forty and fifty stories. Where the race will end no one dare 
predict. 

The building of the skyscraper is in itself a miracle. It does not take 
hundreds of years and tens of thousands of men like the pyramids. It does 
not take decades. It is only a matter of days. Day and night the toil 
goes on. Drills burrow a hundred feet into the earth to reach bed rock. 
A battery of derricks is put into place, huge machines that lift tons and 
tons of steel with no seeming effort. At midnight, when the streets are 
deserted, mighty steel beams are delivered on ponderous wagons ready to 
be used by the iron-workers. The gaunt steel skeleton almost leaps into the 
air. After the erection of every ten stories, the derricks are raised. The 
relentless noise of riveting machines fills the air. By sunlight one gang 
of men ply their trade; by electric light another gang continues. While 
the upper stories of the frame-work are put into place, stoneworkers and 
bricklayers are completing the lower stories. It has been estimated that at 
times the work goes on at the rate of a story a week. The framework of a 
large New York building, containing 22,000,000 pounds of steel, was 
erected in only four hundred hours. To the glory of the contractors be it 
said that as a rule these colossal buildings are erected with almost no loss 
of life. The laborers walk and work on narrow steel beams 600 feet and 
more above the sidewalk. 

266 




STATE CAriTOL AT JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOUKI — This State lias aroa of 09.420 square 

miles (larger than Scotland, Ireland, and Hawaii roml)ined) — Population 3,1!93,335 

(larger than Noi-way and South Australia combined) — Admitted in 1821. 




SiTATE CAPITOL AT LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS — Tliis State has an area of r,3,335 square 

miles (larger than Republic of Guatemala) — Its population is 1,574,440 

(larger than Ecuador) — Admitted to Union in 1836, 




STATE CAPITOL AT AUSTIX, TEXAS — ^This State has an area of :^G5,IS'J6 square iiiiU-s (larger 

than the German Empire in Europe, England and Wales combined) — Its population 

is y,!S'JG,54:i (larger than Switzerland) — Admitted in 1845. 




STATE CAPITOL AT BATON ROUGE, LOUISIAXA—This State has an area of 48,506 square 

miles (about equal to Bulgaria and Montenesiro) — Its population Is 1.656,385 

{larger than Republic of Hayti) — Admitted to the Union in 1812. 



AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

The highest building in the world is the Wool worth Building in New 
York, the city of skyscrapers. Its foundations are laid in its lowest sub- 
basement one hundred and twenty feet beneath the sidewalk, and its flag 
floats 905 feet higher. It towers fifty-five stories high; 46,000,000 
pounds of steel were used for its skeleton; 17,000,000 bricks are mortared 
in its walls, together with 2,500 square feet of cut stone and 7,500 tons of 
terra cotta. The building contains 1,800,000 square feet of floor tiles and 
the same area of partition tiles. There are twenty-six elevators, each so 
made that were it to drop from the top floor it would automatically come 
to a gentle stop long before it reached the bottom. 

The modern skyscraper is a veritable city in itself, containing an 
actual population greater than that of many flourishing communities. The 
tenant of one of the great office buildings may live in his room year in and 
year out and still enjoy all the comforts of life. A restaurant on the top 
floor serves his meals. Downstairs there are stores of all kinds. There are 
news-stands and even theatres. There are barbers in the basement, and 
there are tailors and confectioners, doctors and lawyers, brokers and bankers 
— all trades and occupations within immediate call. Some of the sky- 
scrapers have gymnasiums on the roof. These buildings are inspiring to 
behold, full of dignified beauty. When we remember that some of the 
great European Cathedrals took six and seven centuries to build, we will 
gaze with even greater wonder upon these newer edifices, which spring from 
the earth in a year. 

This record of American achievements might well continue to occupy 
this entire book and many other volumes, but this rapid survey is sufficient 
to demonstrate at least the indomitable will, the courage, the daring, and 
the skill with which the American people attempt gigantic tasks and bring 
them to brilliant culmination — the triumph of the American spirit. 

American Genius Erects World's Greatest Seaports 

THE building of great seaports and erecting huge walls to hold out 
the oceans is one of the daring American achievements. The 
builder of seaports and their modern accessories is a soldier in the 
battle against the destructive elements. They erect bulwarks for those 
cities which are threatened by tidal waves and the like; and carve a way 
to the sea for those which are barricaded by Nature. After Galveston, 
Texas, was wiped out in 1900, and at least 6,000 people were killed, the 
hydraulic engineers walled in the city from the Gulf with a four-mile con- 
crete and granite sea-wall resting upon subterranean piles and planks to 
prevent the sea from undermining the wall. They lifted the city up out 
of the path of danger, in some places elevating it as much as seventeen feet. 

269 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

It required a little more than a year to build this wall, which is a barrier as 
solid as a mountain, and it stands sixteen feet high and sixteen feet wide at 
the base, while a boulevard runs the whole length of the wall. It required 
13,110 car-loads of sand, crushed granite, cement and timber, and 100,000 
tons of granite blocks, some of which weigh a ton each, for the riprap 
before the wall. Seventeen million tons of sand were poured into Galves- 
ton. That is enough to make five pyramids as big as the Egyptian Cheops. 
You would have to load every human being in Europe with 100 pounds of 
sand each to carry this away in one trip. The cost was about $2,000,000. 
During a hurricane in 1909 this wall held back the Gulf and saved Galves- 
ton from suffering another $18,000,000 property loss. A giant's causeway 
connecting Galveston with the mainland was erected in 1912 at a cost of 
$2,000,000. It is a beautiful structure of concrete and steel, and its low 
arched bridges resemble those "moles" which the Romans built to enclose 
their harbors. It is nearly a half mile long, and has a 100-foot lift bridge 
to permit vessels to enter Galveston Bay. It combines a railroad system, 
a roadway, and a promenade, and leads to beautiful plazas at either end. 
Thus Galveston was rescued by American engineers from a debris-strewn 
sand pit and made over into the third greatest seaport in the United States. 

The American who drew the fangs from the mouth of the Mississippi 
River, and consequently made of New Orleans the second greatest seaport 
in our nation, is Elmer Lawrence Corthell, one of the world's greatest 
hydraulic engineers, who has constructed $100,000,000 worth of seaports 
and has added a billion dollars to the commerce of the world. He believed, 
with James B. Eads, that if he could confine the waters of the Mississippi 
through one of the three mouths between narrow dikes, the river would 
carry away the alluvial soil that had choked up the pass. He was right, 
as was proven when the steamship Vulcan proudly steamed up Little South- 
west Pass on May 12th, 1877, ^^^ thence into deep water without having 
touched bottom. The Mississippi was opened to commerce; New Orleans 
became a great seaport, Eads' reputation and money were saved, and 
Corthell's reputation was made. 

The world's greatest seaport, in point of value of commerce, is the 
natural land-locked harbor of New York. Its water-front is estimated at 
748 miles, or a distance equal to that between New York and Cincinnati. 
It had, in 1912, more than 350 miles of wharves for the world's commerce 
carriers to unload their cargoes. Nature provided abundantly for this vast 
fleet of merchant-marine, but there was some room for improvement. One 
of the most remarkable engineering feats was the making of the Ambrose 
Channel, which lessens the journey to Europe by six miles. This is cut 
through a bar in the Lower Bay and is 1,000 feet wide, forty feet deep, and 

270 



/ 

AMERICAN TRIUMPHS OF ENGINEERING 

nearly eight miles long. More than 100,000,000 tons of earth, mud, and 
sand, an amount equal to a third of that dug from the Panama Canal, was 
taken out by dredges during the ten years of operations, which cost about 
$4,000,000. If that amount of material were dug out for an inland canal 
fifty feet wide, fifteen feet deep, it would result in a waterway nearly 500 
miles long — a distance equal to that between New York and Columbus, 
Ohio. 

Millions of dollars have been poured into New York Harbor for im- 
provements to accommodate its fleet of commerce carriers. Plans were 
laid in 1912 to spend $34,000,000 to subdue the treacherous rocks of Hell 
Gate, so that ocean liners can come into port through Long Island Sound, 
and to dredge the Hudson River so that 1,000-foot steamships can safely 
navigate to their piers. 

The world has never witnessed such activity as is now going on among 
our American seaports. Boston is spending $12,000,000 to improve her 
harbor; Baltimore has spent $6,500,000 since her disastrous fire on docks 
and piers; the Southern States and cities are also spending fortunes. Out 
along the Pacific Coast our engineers are creating wonderful harbors. Los 
Angeles will have spent before the year 1922 more than $13,000,000 to 
build up a twenty- three mile water-front; at San Francisco, the State- 
owned docks are being extended at a cost of $1,000,000; Oakland is putting 
$3,000,000 into the municipal docks, while San Diego is having her State 
docks improved at a cost of $1,500,000. To the northward, Seattle and 
Portland are putting touches to Nature's handiwork, so that they can ac- 
commodate the flood of Oriental commerce coming to their shores. 

American Genius Connected Hemispheres with the Cables 

THE most far-reaching American achievement has been the connect- 
ing of the hemispheres by laying cables under the oceans and 
bringing the world into almost instant communication. The idea 
of flashing messages along the bottom of the seas came from Cyrus W. 
Field, to whom the conception of the ocean cable came as a sudden in- 
spiration. It was in the year 1850; he was talking with his brother, 
Matthew, about the possibility of laying a telegraph cable across the Straits 
of Newfoundland. At that time, the cable had not been laid across the 
English Channel, connecting France with England, and the possibility of 
an ocean cable had not been dreamed. Field, then a rich retired merchant, 
suddenly turned to his brother and said: 

"Why cannot America and Europe be joined by cable?" 
His mind brooded over this great idea, and in the meantime the cable 
joining England and the continent of Europe had been laid. 

271 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

It was in August, 1857, that the first momentous step was taken in 
linking together the two hemispheres. Two ships — the Niagara, an Ameri- 
can naval vessel, and the Agamemnon^ of the British navy, left Valencia, 
Ireland, in company, each carrying a section of the first Atlantic cable. 
One year later — on August 18th, 1858 — Queen Victoria sent the first cable 
message under the Atlantic to President Buchanan. It was, very naturally, 
an occasion of great international rejoicing. This first cable had been laid 
from Ireland to Newfoundland; it was 2,000 miles in length, and it had 
cost Field and his company $2,000,000, and the cable message of twenty 
words cost $100. 

The Old World and the New had been brought together. But un- 
expected trouble arose. Even in the midst of Field's great personal 
triumph, the cable suddenly ceased to work. No one knew what was the 
matter, or how to find out, but the calamity bankrupted the company. 
With indomitable energy. Field set about to organize a new company, but, 
before he could succeed, the United States was plunged into the Civil War, 
and he had to wait. He chartered the Great Eastern in 1865 and began 
paying out a new cable from Ireland to Newfoundland. More trouble en- 
sued. When the Great Eastern had arrived within two hundred miles of 
Newfoundland, at one of the deepest points in the Atlantic Ocean, the cable 
parted, and more than a million dollars was lost in the sea. Even then, 
the indomitable Field did not give up. The following year, he sent out 
the Great Eastern again to lay a new cable. At last success was his. Not 
only was the cable laid, but the cable that had been lost the year before had 
been recovered. 

Since the first working ocean cable was laid in 1866, more than two 
hundred and forty thousand miles have been laid under the seas, and every 
important seaport city on this globe has cable connection with the rest of 
the world. The two longest ocean cables are the British cable from Mel- 
bourne to Vancouver and the American cable from San Francisco to Manila. 
The latter is over 7,000 miles long and touches Hawaii, Midway Island, 
and the Island of Guam. It connects all the American possessions in the 
Pacific. Within the last forty years, no one agency has exerted a greater 
influence upon the life of the world than has the cable. It has revolu- 
(tionized international policies and diplomacy. Who can estimate the effect 
of the cable on business"? Billions of dollars in the world's commerce now 
depend directly upon the cable. Before the Atlantic cable, there was little 
or no business in international stocks and Wall Street did not take its 
present commanding place in the financial world until the cable enabled 
it to get into close touch with the London market. Now there is daily over 
a hundred millions of dollars' worth of business on the world's cables. 

272 




STATE (,'Al'ITUl. AT t>KivAliuMA ClTi, ((KLAlluMA — This Stato has an area of 7U,ur)7 si)iiare 

miles (ahout equal to Scothmd and Liberia combined) — Its population is 1,657,155 

(larger than Repulilic of Ecuador) — Admitted in 1907. 




STATE I'AI'ITOL AT SANTA FK, NEW .MJ.\nn 1 ;iis State has an area of 122,0;U square 

miles (larger than the I'hilippines and Alsace-Lorraine combined) — Population 327, .'iOl 

(nearly eijual to Luxemburg auij Iceland combined) — Admitted iu J012, 



FAC SIMILE OF THE ORIGINA: 



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^lMaT£D SJATES 






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ORIGINAL DR.\FT OP DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE— This bears the signature of the delegates 
the Continental Congress who signed the document — It is interesting to note the alterations that 



devcloued during the discussion over the exact phraseology. 



I r BY JEFFERSON OF THE 

[ndEpi^ndi^nCii: 

»ly 1776. 



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WRITING OF THOMAS JEFFERSON— This document was engrossed for permanent record — The ong- 
al is treasured in the archives of the Government — It had a greater effect upon the world than any 

other document ever written. 




M'ATE ( Ai'ITOL AT L1X(C)LN, NKLUA SKA— This State lias an aroa of 77.520 square miles 

(about e<iual to (irecce and irchuul) — Its poiiulation is 1,1!>L',l;14 (about equal to 

Kopulilic of Salvador) — Admitted to Uuion iu 1807. 








jj Jl i^ iw| W w a 

iTiilliillhi 



STATE CAPITOL AT TOPKKA. KANSAS— This State has an aroa of S2.15.S ,<?quare miles 

(about equal to Greece. ITayti. and Costa Rica combined^ — Its population is 

1,690,949 (larger than New South Wales) — Admitted to the Union in 1861, 



PART IV CHAPTER VII 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 



"O, it is excellent 
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous 
To use it like a giant." 

— Shakespeare. 



T 



*'^ I ^HE race of vigour, not by vaunts is won," exclaimed Pope. 
It is difficult to relate with moderate restraint the progress of 
the American in the industrial arts and sciences. We can 
only say with Burke that "he that wrestles with us, 
strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill; our antagonist is our 
helper." 

Every civilization, and every age of human progress, is gauged by 
its power to create new and more serviceable forms for the aspiring spirit 
of man to work in and express itself. Only by the fashioning of forms 
does the mind of an individual or of a nation learn to know itself and 
realize its destiny. We are a great industrial people — the precursors of 
the Industrial Age — because we are a democratic people. Manufacturing 
is the democracy of art. It is every man's craft in which to learn to use 
the mind and hand for the ultimate creation of "life, liberty and the pur- 
suit of happiness." That is why America is the greatest manufacturing 
nation of the world. 

Every American is a product of liberty, and he aspires either con- 
sciously or unconsciously to express that freedom in his daily toil. Thus, 
he strives, in metals, in woods, in earths, in leathers, in furs, in oils, in 
all the chemical compounds and in all the naked elements themselves, to 
liberalize and emancipate his soul, and to develop the God in him. Amer- 
ica is expressing itself in a hundred thousand mills, factories, and shops, 
in the ever-increasing skill, efficiency, patience, endurance and self-control 
of millions of men and women, toiling at machines. 

Our factories alone are kingdoms with populations larger than many 
nations. There are more people at work over the benches in our manu- 
facturing establishments to-day than there are in all of the kingdoms of 
Greece, Norway, and Switzerland combined; or Portugal and Denmark 
combined; or Switzerland and Servia. The population of our factories 
is larger than that of Egypt, or Sweden, or Belgium, or Bulgaria, or Ar- 
gentina, or Rumania, or Chili and Peru combined, or the six nations of 

277 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Uraguay, and Paraguay combined. 

It is a vast empire of machinists and mechanics which labors under our 
industrial system to create the products that give us our national supremacy. 
This brawn and brain of the laboring people form the structure of our 
civilization. Twenty-five years ago the United States became an export 
manufacturing nation. Fifteen years ago a number of its industries had 
grown to giant size. Five years ago it had attained complete supremacy 
in output in seventy-five per cent, of the world's great industries. To-day 
it leads the world in iron and steel, in automobiles, agricultural machinery, 
electric goods and machinery, flour and the milling industry, lumber, paper 
and wood pulp, petroleum, printing and publishing, meat packing, boots 
and shoes, cordage, cotton goods, soap, sugar, woolens, dyeing and finishing 
textiles, machine-tools, and both heavy and light machinery. 

America has no formidable rivals in this industrial age. This fact 
more than anything else has changed the whole relation of America to the 
world. It has given us a great foreign trade in manufactured goods in 
competition with other nations and it is, moreover, giving us a world con- 
sciousness, a new outlook on other peoples and nations, and a new foreign 
policy. It is taking the provincialism, the narrowness and the feeling of 
separateness out of our imaginations and creating for us a sense of world 
responsibility and leadership. This is what our surplus manufactures in 
iron and steel, in bridges, sewing-machines, typewriters, reapers, and plows, 
beef and bacon, petroleum and locomotives are doing for us and for the 
world. 

The magnitude and power of our great manufacturing industries are 
so colossal that it is difficult to get any real conception of them in figures. 
There are nearly 300,000 manufacturing establishments, which give em- 
ployment to nearly 10,000,000 persons. These establishments pay over 
$5,000,000,000 in wages and salaries yearly and they produce goods worth 
$20,000,000,000. Of this vast sum more than $10,000,000,000 is added 
by the skill of the laborer and his machine, as the raw material costs about 
$5,000,000,000. 

During the ten years from 1899 to 1909 the number of establishm.ents 
increased 29.4 per cent.; the capital employed 105.3 P^'' cent.; the average 
number of wage earners 40.4 per cent. ; the amount of primary power 85 ; 
the value of the material consumed 84.6 per cent. ; the value of the product 
81.2 per cent., and the value added by manufacture 76.6 per cent. The 
gross value of products in 1909 exceeded that of 1899 by 9,000,000,000. 
It has been estimated that the gross value of all the manufactured products 
of the United States will reach the enormous sum of $25,000,000,000 in 
1920. 

278 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

It is estimated, as outlined In another chapter, that the United States 
possessed $150,000,000,000 of national wealth in 1914; Great Britain 
$85,000,000,000, Germany $80,000,000,000, France $50,000,000,000, 
Russia $40,000,000,000. What is it that contributes most to swell the 
wealth of the American peopled It is our manufactures. Our agricul- 
ture, though a big item in our national wealth, is limited. Our mining, 
another big source of the nation's wealth, is also limited. The value of our 
manufactures now exceeds them both, because with the advance of civiliza- 
tion an ever increasing percentage of crude commodities has to pass through 
the factory and mill to be prepared for a more refined use. Fifty years 
ago, men did not dream of eating cotton seed oil for food or making varnish, 
or paint out of petroleum, or paper out of wood, or saccharine out of coal 
tar. 

Every time the sun has risen on this great republic since 1910 its rays 
have shone on $16,000,000 of new wealth that was not in existence twenty- 
four hours before and our great manufacturing industries are now con- 
tributing the largest item in that sum. Within five years our factories have 
added nearly as much to our wealth as the little kingdom of Belgium was 
worth at the beginning of the European War, or nearly half as much as the 
whole kingdom of Italy is worth, or nearly one-fourth of that of the whole 
empire of Russia, or one-fifth of that of the rich republic of France. 
We take four billion dollars out of our fields, mines, and forests, and al- 
most treble them in our mills. We have not only in many lines become 
the first of manufacturing nations but we are fast approaching the days 
of becoming the first of commercial nations — that is, the greatest ex- 
porters of manufacturing commodities. The die is cast. Our great, 
teeming cities, containing nearly half our population and ever growing, 
have determined our future. We are to become the world's greatest work- 
shop and mart. 

Beginning of the Industrial Age in America 

LET us go back into the years and watch the steady rise of the indus- 
trial age. When Alexander Hamilton submitted his celebrated 
"Report on Manufacturing" to Congress in 1791, practically every 
family in our country supplied most of its own needs. In New England, 
the cradle of American manufacturing, some families began to make more 
than they needed and sold their goods to others. Tanneries, iron shops, 
furniture factories, and houses for making boats and docks, for building 
ships and various other manufacturing establishments, sprang up to meet 
the needs of neighborhoods, villages, and groups of communities. 

But the American people from 1800 to 1850 were on the move, push- 

279 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

ing back the frontier at sunset, driving on into the West till they had come 
to the water's edge of the Pacific. During these five most eventful dec- 
ades, the family loom and spinning wheel, the cobbler and the little shop 
supplied most of the needs of a nation in the throes of its birth. When 
this great movement reached the Mississippi River in 1840, the line was 
growing long, and compact settlements stood wide apart. The railroad 
had now become an absolute necessity. A railroad calls for a factory — 
and factories came. The new farms of the valleys called for the plow and 
the reaper — and they came. The nation now had to be built and the great 
problem was to free as many people as possible from the toils of agriculture 
to do other work. 

Then came the Civil War and it tremendously stimulated the de- 
mands for manufactures. Accompanied as it was by a high tariff to 
raise revenue for the Government, it gave a great impetus to the building 
of factories. Agriculture was the chief source of wealth until 1880. But 
the country became a manufacturing nation from 1880 to 1890 and since 
then manufacturing has dominated our national politics and the policy of 
the Government. The great corporations and combines from 1890 to 1905 
grew out of this dominance of manufacture. According to Mulhall, we 
produced in manufacturing in 1900 about half as much as all Europe com- 
bined. We had greatly increased our lead in 1910 and our manufactured 
products are now worth more than those of Great Britain, Germany, 
France, and Austria combined. 

One of the secrets of the great power of American industries to 
produce their enormous output is due to the inventions described in another 
chapter. In over 90 per cent, of the mills, when it is possible for machin- 
ery to do the work of hands, machinery is in use; therefore, an American 
factory employee does three and even four times more work reckoned by 
output than an English operative. The American workman uses machine 
tools whenever it is possible, while English workmen, up to the beginning 
of the great European War, generally failed to do so. The Germans use 
these machine tools now very extensively, having some twenty years ago 
begun the adoption of American machinery methods. 

We witness the rapid rise of American industries during the last quar- 
ter of the last century. During this period the growth of production of 
manufactures in the United States was $5,932,000,000, while in England, 
Germany, and France combined it was $3,833,000,000. The percentage 
of increase for the United States was 85 per cent, and for the three Euro- 
pean countries combined 42 per cent. The actual figures for the consump- 
tion of three of the most important articles ultilized in manufacturing for 
each of the countries in question for this term of years show the tremen- 

280 




STATE CAPITOL AT IlISMAiaK, >"OKTII DAKOTA — This State has au area of 70,837 square 
miles (.about oi|ual to lJeinil)lic of Ui'uguay) — Its population is 577.056 (larger tban 

Kingiloiii of iloutenegro) — Admitted to the Union in 18S9. 




STATE CAPITOL AT PIERRE, SOUTH DAKOTA — This State has an area of 77,615 square 

miles (larger than Scotland and (Jreeee combined) — Its population is 583,888 (nearly 

equal to Republic of Nicaragua; — Admitted to Union in 1880, 




I 



STATK (ArriOL AT HELENA, MONTANA — This State has an area or 146,!»'.»7 square miles 

(larger than continental Italy and Ireland) — Its population is 376,053 (about CQual 

to the Republic of Panama) — Admitted in 1889. 




STATE CAPITOL AT BOISE, IDAHO — This State has an area of 83,888 square miles (about 

equal to Korea* — Its population is 325.540 {nl>out equal to the Island 

of Crete) — Admitted to the Union in 1890, 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

dous advance of the American nation. The three articles — cotton, pig- 
iron, and coal — supply in their consumption a better measurement of indus- 
trial manufacturing activity than any other data available in countries 
which take no census of manufactures. The figures presented in the annual 
report of the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics show that the actual increase 
in cotton consumption in the United States in the last twenty-five years 
of the last century was 1,026,917,226 pounds, as against an increase of 
but 883,653,016 pounds in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France 
combined, the percentage of increase in the United States being 107 per 
cent., as against 46 per cent, in the three European countries combined. In 
pig-iron consumption, the actual increase in the United States was 
15,263,454 tons, as against an increase of 11,518,000 tons in the four 
countries, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Russia combined; 
while the percentage of increase in the United States is 437 per cent., as 
against an increase of 102 per cent, in the four European countries com- 
bined. In coal consumed, the actual increase in the United States was 
247,214,000 tons, as against an increase of 175,301,000 tons in the four 
countries, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Russia, combined; 
and the percentage of increase in the United States is 364 per cent., as 
against an increase of 82 per cent, in the four European countries combined. 

Considering the actual quantities of these three great articles con- 
sumed, the figures for 1914 are: Cotton consumption, 5,649,000 bales 
(each bale 500 pounds) in the United States, against 4,300,000 bales in 
the United Kingdom, 6,000,000 bales on the Continent of Europe, the total 
amount consumed in the United States thus exceeding by about 33 per 
cent, that of the United Kingdom and being far in excess of that of 
Germany and France combined. 

The total production of pig-iron in the United States in 1912 was 
29,798,927 tons, against 17,868,900 tons in Germany, 8,751,461 tons in 
the United Kingdom, and 4,938,324 tons in France — the production of 
the United States being thus nearly double that of Germany and consider- 
ably more than treble that of the United Kingdom. Of coal production, 
the figures for the United States are 575,048,125 tons, as against 
321,922,130 tons for the United Kingdom, 281,979,467 tons for Ger- 
many, 45,108,544 tons for France, and 31,752,744 tons for Russia, the 
production of coal in the United States being thus nearly double that of 
the United Kingdom and fully double that of Germany. 

The one country of Europe in which the figures of growth begin to 
approximate those of the United States is Germany, which shows in the 
case of coal consumption an increase of 1 74 per cent., against 364 per cent, 
in the United States ; in pig-iron consumption, an increase of 366 per cent. 

283 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

against 437 per cent, in the United States ; and in cotton consumption, an 
increase of 170 per cent., as against 107 per cent, in the United States. 
In actual consumption, however, Germany shows an increase in coal of 
but 99,234,000 tons, as compared with 247,214,000 tons in the United 
States; in pig-iron, an increase of 7,095,000 tons, as against 15,263,454 
tons in the United States; and in cotton, an increase of 513,676,000 pounds 
as against 1,026,917,226 pounds in the United States. 

But it is not alone to high tariff, great combines, and the general use 
of machinery that the supremacy of America in manufacturing must be 
attributed. These have been great auxiliary factors but the people who 
settled this country were naturally creators and inventors and their de- 
scendants are so to a still greater degree. Especially was this true in 
New England where the people, as we have seen in the beginning, showed 
great aptitude for making things to meet their growing needs. The har- 
nessing of the rivers was one of the greatest achievements in American 
history. 

Causes of Americans Supremacy as an Industrial "Nation 

AN inventory of the causes of our greatness as a manufacturing nation 
may be grouped under the following heads. First stands the native 
genius of the people, referred to above. Second: agricultural 
resources; third: mineral resources. There are separate chapters on these 
factors in this volume. It is plain that a country which produces nine- 
tenths of the world's cotton, one-third of its coal, one-fourth of its iron-ore, 
one-half of its copper, and a similar generous share of many other things, 
such as lumber, grain, hides, and petroleum, has a great advantage in the 
matter of raw materials upon which to set labor and capital at work. 

Another important factor in the development of American industries 
was the canal system, a magnificent but now scarcely used system of navig- 
able rivers amounting to 18,000 miles, and a highly important system of 
Great Lakes waterways extending for 1,000 miles and carrying a tonnage 
"equal to nearly 40 per cent, of that of the entire railroad system of the 
United States." The greatest factor is our railway system, constructed 
with great rapidity between i860 and 1880. 

As an example of American ingenuity, we may cite the invention of 
the system of interchangeable parts, which has made possible the use of 
complex machinery in agriculture or other industries at a distance from 
machine shops or the point of original manufacture. Activity, skill, and 
willingness characterize the best type of American workmen, and this 
willingness is shown, in part, by a readiness to migrate to those places 
where manufacture can be carried on most economically. The organizing 

284 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

ability of American capitalists cannot be doubted. There is scarcely an 
industry upon which the peculiar genius of the American has not wrought 
an effect. 

The introduction of machinery has changed our whole economic sys- 
tem. In food manufacture we began with the slowly revolving millstone, 
but Oliver Evans originated the system of automatic conveyors now in 
use. When later this was coupled with the middlings purifier, also of 
American origin, and the Hungarian roller process in a modified form, the 
modern mill first became a reality. Here the factory system was first ap- 
plied to the making of cheese and butter, resulting in the cheese factory 
and creamery. An instance of a wonderful application of machinery to a 
complex process is afforded by our slaughtering and meat-packing estab- 
lishments. While the production of beef extract in South America is 
reputed to be one of the most wasteful industries in existence, involving the 
destruction of an entire carcass of beef to produce a few pounds of extract, 
the American method with beef and pork products is based upon the utmost 
despatch through the division of labor, continuous refrigeration from fac- 
tory to consumer, and the utilization of every product so that there is no 
waste. It has been said that "the packer gets everything out of the hog 
but its squeal, and this he gets out of the public." 

In textile manufacture we are now the second nation in the world in 
the number of cotton spindles operated, and first in the amount of cotton 
fibre used. In iron and steel manufacture, we long since passed our chief 
rival. Great Britain. It was an old axiom for many years that the manu- 
facture of steel could only develop where coal and ore were together. 
Yet Chicago, very distant from ore and coal supplies, is the seat of an 
enormous production of iron. The ore from Lake Superior and the coal 
from Pennsylvania meet there half way. Other lake ports, like Cleveland 
and Toledo, present the same phenomenon due to the cheapening of rail 
transportation. The development of the industry in the Pittsburgh region 
and in Alabama has made this country the greatest producer of iron and 
steel in the world. Here structural steel was employed in buildings. The 
structures into which the first girders went are still standing — Cooper 
Union and Harper's publishing house in New York City. An enormous 
demand for iron and steel is created for agricultural and mining and man- 
ufacturing machinery and also for electrical equipments and gas and water 
pipe. Nowhere are stoves and ranges made so large and beautiful as here, 
and nowhere is tin plate used so lavishly. In lumber, leather, paper and 
other lines the record is similarly very great. 

The United States is at the head of the shoe export trade. It sells to 
Other nations some $12,000,000 worth of shoes annually, the principal cus- 

285 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

tomers being Cuba, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, the West 
Indies and Bermuda, Central America, France, Germany and the Philip- 
pines. Cuba alone purchases 35 per cent, of all the shoes exported from 
this country, France only about 2 per cent. 

Growth of Great Cities upon Industrial Foundations 

INDUSTRIES of the United States are most of them strongly local- 
ized in certain regions. This tendency to develop a territorial division 
of labor always has been marked in this country, in agriculture as well 
as in manufactures. The causes which lead to the location of industry in 
certain places are enumerated by the census: Nearness to materials — 
this is illustrated by the oyster canning of Baltimore. Nearness to mar- 
ket — the agricultural implement manufacturers of Chicago find their best 
market in the region which is tributary to that city. Water power — Fall 
River, Massachusetts, with its textile manufacture, Cohoes, New York, with 
its knitting industry, and Niagara Falls, with its electro-chemical industries, 
have resulted from the utilization of water power. Favorable climate — 
the Piedmont section of the South attracts cotton mills, not only because of 
its nearness to materials and its water powers, but because of its favorable 
climate. Supply of labor — the garment trades are largely monopolized by 
New York City, Philadelphia, and other large cities on the coast because 
there is a large population of foreign birth, with modest standards of living, 
which furnish adequate supplies of economical labor. 

The absorption of capital by American industries is an interesting 
phase of our national growth. When the whaling industry declined. 
New Bedford, which had become wealthy by means of it and was ranked as 
one of the richest cities in the United States, invested much of its capital 
into cotton manufacturing. The city of Chicago was not able to sur- 
pass Cincinnati as the center of the pork-packing industry in the West 
until the local banks acquired enough money to aid the packers in carrying 
the enormous financial load of buying the raw materials, which for that 
business constitute about 75 per cent, of the value of the finished product. 
Sir William Johnston early brought glovers from England to Johnstown, 
New York, and started the industry for which that city and Amsterdam 
and Glovers ville are now noted. Had the celebrated "shoemaker of Lynn" 
settled in a neighboring village, Lynn might not now signify shoes wher- 
ever the name is heard. 

If we examine a map, showing the location of American manufactures, 
we shall observe that they are markedly concentrated along the Atlantic 
seaboard, from the middle of Maine to the latitude of Baltimore, and 
covering a region extending perhaps one hundred miles back from the coast. 

286 




STATE CAPITOI. AT ('II KVK.WE, WYOMING — This State has an area of 07,914 square miles 

(nearly equal to Englaud, .Sootland. Wales and Belgium combined) — Its population 

is 145,965 — ^Admitted to the Union in 1890. 




STATE CAPITOL AT DENVER. COLORADO— This State has an area of 103,948 square miles 

(nearly as much as New Zealand) — Its population is 799,024 (larger than 

the Republic of Paraguay) — Admitted to the Union in 1876. 




STATE CAPITOL AT SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — This State has an area of 84,990 square miles 

(larger than Uruguay and Belgium combined) — Its population is 373,351 (about 

equal to Republic of Costa Rica) — Admitted to the Union in 1896. 




bTAIL CAPIIOL AT I'lluKMX. ARIZONA— 'Ihis State has an area of 113,956 square miles 

(larger than continental Italy) — Its population is 204,354 (larger than 

tne Island of Hawaii) — Admitted to the Union in 1912. 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

West of this an irregular belt of country, including middle New York, 
western Pennsylvania, and northeastern Ohio, stands out prominently. 
Passing still farther west, we find the manufactures not so evenly dis- 
tributed, but rather concentrated at certain points, such as Cincinnati, 
Louisville, the gas belt of Indiana, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Min- 
neapolis, Kansas City and Omaha. The South shows a large number of 
small, rather isolated manufacturing localities. These occur most fre- 
quently upon the Piedmont Plateau, from southern Virginia to northern 
Alabama. In the Rocky Mountain States and the region west of them, 
five centers stand out separated from one another by wide intervals of 
undeveloped country. They are the middle portion of Colorado, Salt Lake 
Valley, the Butte region of Montana, the Puget Sound and Columbia River 
cities from Sacramento to Alameda. 

The national center of manufactures has been fixed at a point in the 
middle of Ohio, about ten miles southeast of Mansfield. It has moved 
west only about forty miles in ten years. The center of population lies 
west of this, in Indiana. California is first in preserving vegetables and 
fruits, vinous liquors, lead smelting and refining. Connecticut is first in 
ammunition, brassware, clocks, corsets, cutlery, needles, pins, and hard- 
ware. New York is first in thirty-one industries, among which are butter 
and cheese, gloves, factory-made clothing, furniture, chemicals, hosiery, 
malt liquors, lithographing, printing and publishing, millinery and lace 
goods, paper and pulp, patent medicines, soap and candles, sugar refining, 
cigars and cigarettes. Illinois is first in the manufacture of agricultural 
implements, bicycles, cars, glucose, and distilled liquors, and in slaughter- 
ing and meat packing. Wisconsin is first in lumber and timber products. 
Minnesota leads in flouring and grist mills. Texas leads in cotton 
ginning and manufacture of products from cotton seed. Some manu- 
factures are limited to very restricted areas, a group of States or a single 
State or even a portion of a State confining them. The most highly con- 
centrated industry is the making of collars and cuffs, of which 99.6 per 
cent, is within New York State and 85.3 per cent, is in the single city of 
Troy. 

The tendency to centralize Industry has given rise to cities which are 
chiefly devoted to one occupation. The city most wholly given up to one 
thing Is South Omaha; 89.8 per cent, of the products of this city are the 
output of the great packing houses located there. A list of cities of 30,000 
and over In population, in each of which 40 per cent, or over of the indus- 
trial products belong to one branch of manufacture, is an interesting study. 
Brockton, Haverhill and Lynn, Massachusetts, signify shoes. In the past 
twenty years the shoe business has been growing rapidly in the West, 

289 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

especially In the Valley of the Mississippi. Lynn, however, has retained 
its supremacy in the shoe trade and produces 75 per cent, of the shoes made 
in New England and 50 per cent, of all the shoes made in the United 
States, or about 10,000,000 cases. Springfield, Ohio, means agricultural 
implements ; Troy, New York, is collars and cuffs. Cotton goods are con- 
centrated in Warwick, Rhode Island; Fall River, New Bedford, Massa- 
chusetts; Lewiston, Maine; Manchester, New Hampshire; Charlotte, 
North Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina. Fur hats are in Bethel and 
Danbury, Connecticut; Orange, New Jersey. Glass in Millville, New 
Jersey; Tarentum and Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Knit goods in Cohoes, 
New York; iron in McKeesport, Youngstown, Johnstown, New Castle, 
Joliet, Pittsburg, Trenton. Jewelry in North Attleboro and Attle- 
boro, Massachusetts. Gloves in Gloversville and Johnstown, New York. 
Pottery in East Liverpool, Ohio. Silk in West Hoboken and Paterson, 
New Jersey. Slaughtering and meat packing in Chicago, South Omaha, 
Kansas City and St. Joseph. 

About one-half of the manufactures of the United States are turned 
out in our one hundred largest cities. These cities contain 28 per cent, of 
the population. About one-third of these products come from the 209 
cities having over 20,000 population. The greatest concentration of a 
manufacture in cities is found in the case of men's and women's clothing, 
hats and caps, cars, umbrellas and canes, lithographing and engraving. 
The smallest degree of concentration is found in the case of flour and grist 
mills, distilled liquors, and brick and tile. 

New York City is most cosmopolitan in its manufactures, exhibiting 
the greatest variety of them, and having a number of establishments which 
are the only ones of their kind in the country. There were 45,776 manu- 
factories in New York City (1910), employing $15,250,000 capital 
and 600,000 persons turning out goods annually to the value of 
$2,371,000,000. The most numerous class of establishments in the city 
was for custom work and repairing of boots and shoes, of which there were 
3,841. There were more than 1,000 establishments each for the manu- 
facture of cigars, women's clothing, dressmaking, carpentering, men's cloth- 
ing, and also for plumbing, painting, and blacksmi thing. 

VdSdt to the Iron and Steel Industries in America 

LET us go on a few short visits to some of the great American indus- 
tries. We view the huge mining and agricultural industries in other 
chapters, but here it is instructive and entertaining to survey some 
of the manufacturing groups. This is the day of giants — there is no deny- 
ing the truth. We see them wherever we turn our eyes — giants that step 

290 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

from flaming furnaces and stretch their enormous frames over valleys and 
rivers, or snort fire from their nostrils, or float on the waves like sea mon- 
sters. And the greatest giant of all is the steel industry. Here we look 
into blast furnaces that turn huge kettles of molten metal into far leaping 
steel bridges, towering steel skyscrapers, deep steel tunnels under the 
earth, steel greyhounds of the ocean, steel engines running swiftly across 
continents on steel tracks. The molten masses of iron are daily trans- 
formed into that greatest of metal — yes, greater than gold and silver — the 
metal that is the back-bone of our modern civilization. First we had the 
Stone Age ; then the Bronze Age ; then the Iron Age — this is the Steel Age. 
Our lives are to-day encompassed by steel. We are absolutely dependent 
on it for our daily necessities and conveniences. Imagine what the world 
would be like with steel taken out of it. The amount of steel used for 
warlike purposes is overwhelming, but it is nothing compared with that em- 
ployed in the arts of peace. The railroads alone laid out through the 
length and breadth of the United States represent a weight of 70,000,000 
tons, while the engines in use total nearly 5,000,000 more. 

Watch for a moment the transformation of iron into steel by the 
genius of man. The molten iron is run onto a train of ladles, whose loco- 
motive draws it to the open-hearth department of the steel works. There 
the air is blown through it by what is called the Bessemer process, or it is 
poured into an oven and subjected to a fierce heat. Then it is poured into 
a gigantic ladle, capable of holding fifteen to twenty tons, which is swung 
by a crane to a position just above a train of ingot molds placed in little 
trucks on a railroad track. Through a hole in the bottom of the ladle the 
steel is poured into each mold, filling it to the top ; and, when it has cooled 
sufficiently to stand, the molds are stripped off, and there are the ingots — 
massive blocks of steel, six feet high, and a foot or more thick, and still 
red-hot. Then the little train moves on to the soaking pits, where an 
overhead crane, with a pair of jaws like huge ice tongs, seizes each ingot 
and lowers it into a pit, where its temperature is equalized, the surface 
being warmed by a gas flame, whilst the inner part cools down. It then 
goes to the roll-tables, where it is squeezed into shape, according to the use 
for which it is designed. It is now sent forth to perform its mighty mission 
in the world. Forthwith it takes myriad forms of usefulness. It girdles 
the earth with railroads. It lines the huge buildings of our cities. It 
builds up the machinery of the factory. It prints the newspaper. It fills 
the surgeon's case. It plows and reaps the harvest of the world. It 
moves the giant vessel over the ocean. It makes the world's clothing. 
There is nothing of importance in the affairs of men in which the great 
magician, Steel, does not have a part. 

291 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

This is an American industry. A century ago, steel played a hardly 
greater part in our lives than in those of our primeval ancestors. At the 
beginning of the Nineteenth Century, about 35,000 tons of steel were made 
annually in Great Britain, then the greatest producer in the world. It 
produced six and a half million tons in 191 1. But the United States has 
quadrupled that figure, with 24,000,000 tons out of the world's output of 
58,000,000. We lead the world, not only in the production, but in the 
use of steel. When Bessemer, an Englishman, suggested his new process 
for making steel, in 1855, from cast iron without fuel, he was laughed to 
scorn. But Americans were quick to see the possibilities of the invention, 
and the production of steel by the new process increased by leaps and 
bounds in this country. How astonishing this progress has been is shown 
by the fact that, at the opening of the twentieth century, the United States 
was producing as much steel as the whole world had produced in 1892. 
It would have required the total production of all the gold mines of the 
world to pay for that one year's production of steel. 

Let us try to get an idea of the magnitude of the present annual 
product of steel in the United States — which is five times the total produc- 
tion of the world twenty years ago. Suppose that for one year the 
country could spare from its ordinary use all the steel produced and devote 
it to ornamental purposes. It would make a magnificent colonnade of 
pillars, 4,150 on each side, 20 feet in diameter and 100 feet high. Or, if 
we preferred it, we could build one colossal column, 100 feet in diameter, 
and pile it up higher than Mount Everest, the loftiest peak in the world. 

In the old days steel was used in destroyyig human life — that was 
almost its sole use. In these times, it is employed for protecting and pre- 
serving human life. Even in the case of a great railroad accident, the 
disastrous effects are minimized by the use of steel cars. And here should 
be mentioned one of the most beneficial purposes to which steel has been 
applied — the construction of great buildings. It has proved its worth in 
the presence of fire and earthquake. In the great Baltimore fire, the frame- 
work of the steel buildings stood unscathed, even when exposed to the full 
severity of the conflagration. An even more convincing illustration was 
provided in the San Francisco fire, when the tall, steel-ribbed buildings 
stood practically intact, after enduring shocks which threw everything 
around them to the ground. And tests made of steel corrosion show that 
the life of such buildings is practically assured for generations. The 
strength of steel is phenomenal. The number of strands in a steel rope an 
inch in circumference varies from 40 to 400, and a strand as large as a 
knitting-needle will require a ton weight to tear it apart! 

As America has become the empire of steel, so is Pittsburgh its capital. 

292 




STATE CAPITOL AT SACRA:\1 ];N'1( », rALIl()i;XlA — This State has an area of 158.297 square 

miles (larger than England. Stotlaml, Ireland, Wales, and Servia combined) 

— Population 2,377,549 (larger than Norway) — Admitted in 1850. 




gTATK (WI'ITOL AT CAltSOX CITV, NEVADA— Tliis Stnto has au area of IIO.O'JU square' luilw 

(nearly equal to the Philippine Islands) — ^Its population is 81,875 (about equal to 

liermuda and Bahama Island combined) — Admitted in 1864, 




STATE CAI'ITUL AT ULYMTIA, WAiSlIlMiTUX — Tliis State has an area of G9,l:i7 square miles 

(larger than kingdom of Roumania ) — ^Its population is 1,141,990 (larger than 

Republic of Uruguay) — Admitted to Union in 1889. 




STATE OAPITOL AT SALEM, OREGON— This State has an area of 9G,G99 square miles (nearly 

equal to Republic of Paraguay) — Its population is 672,705 (larger than the Republic 

of Nicaragua) — Admitted to the Union in 1S59. 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

Around it, stretching in every direction in a huge circle is a network of 
steel-making towns. Steel has multiplied the population of Pittsburgh by- 
ten during the past fifty years and has doubled it during the past twenty; 
it now stands eighth among American cities. It has made more million- 
aires, and more quickly, than any other industry. So long as America is at 
the head of the steel industry, it will lead the world. "The nation that 
makes the cheapest steel," said Andrew Carnegie, "has the other nations at 
its feet. Steel has come to be the basis of all material progress, and our 
civilization is built, as it were, upon a framework of steel." 

Flour Milling Industries in the United States 

A GLIMPSE at the flour milling industry in the United States 
shows an interesting phase of our national everyday life. The 
little grain of wheat feeds the world. Our enormous mills eat 
up millions of bushels of wheat like hungry giants. England, Holland, 
Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, and Sweden must all look to foreign coun- 
tries for their wheat and flour. We bake bread enough every year to give 
thirty loaves to each of the earth's inhabitants. We could build eight 
"bread lines," each stretching from New York to San Francisco. The 
little sheaf of wheat passes through in its journey from the harvest fields 
of Kansas, or Illinois, or Washington, or Nebraska to the twenty-odd 
millions of American breakfast tables. The first merchant mill was 
erected in Minneapolis in 1854. The first great steel mill was erected in 
1878, and in twelve years this infant city on the headwaters of the Mis- 
sissippi became the world's greatest "flour city." Improved machinery 
has made flour milling one of the greatest of American industries. 

If you ever go to the "flour cities," be sure to visit the wonderful grain 
elevators. They are high, windowless buildings, with a superstructure 
resembling a cupola, in which is installed the machinery. The elevators of 
the Northwest, such as those of Minneapolis, for example, are capable of 
storing from 500,000 to 4,000,000 bushels of wheat, and can handle and 
transfer as much as 30,000 bushels in an hour. There were in the United 
States, at the time of the last census, 11,691 establishments producing 
flour. They paid $38,981,000 in salaries and wages that year, and gave 
work to 51,484 persons. There were $349,182,000 invested in these es- 
tablishments, and the value of the products was $883,584,000. More 
than two hundred million barrels of wheat flour were produced. 

The sugar industry is one of the great factors in American progress 
and is an economic and political problem. We Americans are now 
consuming nearly 4,000,000 tons of sugar a year. The world's annual 
output is 12,000,000 tons. More than 7,000,000 tons are obtained from 

295 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

beets. Few persons realize how the industry has gone through an evolu- 
tion which has made sugar the commodity which it is to-day. This evolu- 
tion has been brought about by the application of modern American ideas to 
the machinery and chemistry involved in extracting sugar from the plants 
and in the methods of refining the raw product. 

Sugar Industry and the Development of the South 

THE first sugar mill to be established in this country was that of 
Etienne De Bore. The cane had been introduced in Louisiana, 
in 1751, by the Jesuits, and thrived there fairly well. De Bore's 
mill was erected not long afterward on what is now the site of the city of 
New Orleans. To-day the extraction and refining of sugar, as well as the 
growing of the cane, constitute one of the most important industries of that 
part of the South. Steam mills came into use in the first half of the 
Nineteenth Century, a Mr. Coiron being the first man to adopt the idea. 
From that time on, the mills have grown in size and effectiveness, so that 
by 1900 there was exhibited at the Paris Exposition a sugar mill that was 
capable of crushing three hundred tons of sugar-cane a day; but the 
latest mills can crush from nine to twelve hundred tons in twenty-four 
hours. American inventiveness has, of course, helped to make this possible. 
Jeremiah Howard patented a device for the regulation of the feeding of 
the stalks into the first roller in 1858. This patent operates so as to 
have both sides of the roller working evenly and also prevents foreign 
substances, such as stray pieces of wood or iron, from entering. The primi- 
tive open receptacles have given way to the modern multiple-effect evap- 
orator, an invention of Morberto Relleux, who first put it into use at New 
Orleans in 1840. He discovered the important fact that, the shorter time 
the juice is exposed to heat, the less loss there is of sugar. The time re- 
quired has been cut down by carrying out this evaporation in vacuum pans, 
an idea first put into practice by E. C. Howard. Before sugar is fit to be 
placed on our tables, it must be refined, and the refining is often done miles 
away from the sugar mills. There are great suger refining factories in and 
about New York City, and to these hundreds of thousands of tons of raw 
sugar are brought yearly from foreign mills as well as those in the southern 
part of our own country. It was an American who finally produced sugar 
from beets, and made it practical for commercial purposes. His name was 
David Lee Child. He gave it his attention in 1840. The brothers 
Genert set up a beet-sugar mill in Chatsworth, Illinois, in 1863. There 
are now more than seventy beet-sugar mills in this country. 

296 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES ^ 

Leather Industry Grows to Gigantic Proportions 

THE leather industry is a witness to American ingenuity. There are 
over 200,000 engaged in all the branches of the industry in the 
United States. We have 5,000 establishments in this country and 
they earn more than $100,000,000 each year. We import from all coun- 
tries of the world — the United States cannot begin to meet our demand — 
more than $120,000,000 worth of hides and skins, stripped from the 
backs of cattle, horses, buffalo, sheep, goats, kangaroos, pigs, and even the 
fish of the sea, and many other kinds of animals. 

It has been said that the Pilgrims, not intending to walk barefoot in 
the New World, brought over a cordwainer for the purpose. The first 
tannery mentioned in America is the Virginian establishment which began 
operations in the same year that Boston was founded, 1630. It was only 
a matter of a year or so before Francis Ingalls had one established in the 
Massachusetts Colony, in Swampscott. In those days, the trade was con- 
sidered of such vital importance that the authorities issued strict laws that, 
whenever an animal was killed, its hide must be saved for the neighborhood 
leather maker, and also laws that prohibited, under heavy penalty, hides 
being exported. Under this protection the industry flourished, especially 
that of making shoes. 

Many great Americans have been shoemakers. One of them was 
Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a maker 
of the Constitution of the United States. He worked at the bench for 
twenty-two years. From the old-time shoemaker's bench to the modern 
shoe factory there intervenes but little more than a century of practice. 
The battle of New Orleans was but a year old when J. W. Hopkinton 
invented the shoe-pegging machine, one of the first steps toward the modern 
era of shoe-machinery. If you have never been in one of the New England 
shoe shops, as th^y are to-day, you cannot appreciate the wonderful in- 
genuity of the machines. They perform all the work, from cutting out the 
leather to putting on the finishing polish. There are machines that sew 
the uppers together, make and attach the toe-caps, fasten in accurately the 
eyelets, fit the uppers over the lasts so that they fit the foot like a glove, 
cut grooves, and trim, nail, and stitch inner and outer soles together and 
then to the uppers, level the soles and heels, which are nailed on by 
machinery, to a uniform thickness and then sandpaper them, and finally 
bevel, blacken, and burnish the heels and soles with hot irons. The fin- 
ished product is the pride of American industry and is pronounced by the 
world as the finest shoe made. The American shoemakers are turning out 

297 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

their product at the rate of 250,000,000 shoes every year, enough to give 
every individual in our nation two and a half pairs. 

American Woolen Industries Clothe the "Nation 

THE United States is the greatest wool consuming nation In the 
world. To supply this demand, or at least a great part of it, we 
have in this country more than 50,000,000 sheep, a greater number 
than we have of horses, mules, and dairy cows. In the one State of Mon- 
tana alone there are more sheep than there are mules in the whole coun- 
try. We clip from all our sheep more than 300,000,000 pounds of fine 
wool, enough to supply every individual American with three pounds each. 
Over 1,200 American woolen mills use this vast fleecy mass, and call upon 
the rest of the world for sufficient wool to meet the insatiable demand. 
Columbus when he came to America in 1493, included in his cargo several 
Spanish sheep, which became progenitors of large flocks in New Mexico, 
Utah, and Texas. Sheep were introduced from England into Virginia in 
1609; into Massachusetts from England in 1624; and into New York from 
Holland in 1625. Picture a well sheltered valley, deep with luscious 
grass. Keen-eyed men, two to a flock, ceaselessly watch their charges, 
numbering, in the aggregate, hundreds of thousands of sheep, each valued 
at from $3 to $12 apiece. Scores of intelligent sheep dogs sit on their 
haunches, keenly watching every move of the sheep. It is early spring in 
one of our Southwestern States, and the drovers are preparing to bring 
their flocks to the clipping sheds. They are long rambling buildings, 
whose interiors resemble a modern factory in the point of machinery. 
Long belts hang to the shaftings and lead down to the clipping machines, 
or shears. Twenty shearers, men who are experts at their trades and 
follow the clipping seasons, as the wheat harvesters do, take position beside 
the machines. When all is ready, each man reaches into the shute leading 
from the outside and seizes a sheep and with a quick swing has it in sitting 
posture between his knees. The machinery whirrs, and the flashing shears 
slip over the sheep's back, clipping off his woolen coat in less than two 
minutes, a coat weighing on the average seven pounds of good wool, which, 
after scouring, will sell at the rate of about ^<, cents a pound. 

Ninety-five out of every hundred Americans who wear woolen clothing 
are clad in fabrics from American mills. To describe the processes by 
which the various cloths are made would fill a volume, as almost every 
kind of cloth is manufactured differently. The worsted machines are 
ingenious. One, the gilling machine, levels the fibers and makes them lie 
parallel, one pair of rollers pulling the yarn over heavy steel bars, fallers, 
covered with projecting pins, the pins becoming finer and more numerous 

298 




GO\'i:i;.\(>l;s rALACIO AT SAX .H'AX, POUTO RlCd-rnit.d St:ili's t<»ik no'^spssion of tlii^ 

island in ISDS — Its population is l,ir)1.57i» — Its area is :xG()4 square miles — This photograph 

is loaned to this volume by Ex-Governor George R. Colton of Porto Rico. 




COVKKX.MKXT l;riLI>]X( 
nitfd S 
tioa is i:00,0t)5 



AT II()X()UT,r. 



IIAWAIIAX ISl.AXIi.s I ].,..,■ islanils h,.,-inir Uv- 
ritory id the United States in PKIU — Their area is (;,44!) sciuaro miles and their populn- 
Hawaii is one of tlic large sugar producing eo\mtri(>s, 




fsm 



FJJtST IXa\U(!ITKAL ADDKKSS DELIVERED TC THE AMEUICAX PEOrLE— This famous ensraving liy Nealor 

Hbows Washington as lie stood before both Houses of Congress on April 30, 1789, and delivered his 

inaugural address — It was characterized by his usual modesty, moderation and good sense. 




I'KINCirLKS OK DKMOfKAi'V SI"!' IDICl'll I'.V WAKIII N'/roX Wasliinjiton, at liis iii:iiiKiii;iti..ii. snini 
key-note of I£fpiil)li<"in (iovcrriiiicnt : "Tlic foiirifiiition of our ri:ition;il poli<y," lie said, "will be liiirl 
iu tlJi; pure aud iiuuiutable piimiplcs of private morality, aud free goveruiueut." 




<;(»\ i;k.\mk.\t r.riLDiXG at Manila, I'liii.iri'iXK islands— tik" luited states ostai) 

lislu'd civil government in these islands in 1U02 — The population is 8,460,052 — Its area 
is 115,026 square miles (larger than the Kingdom of Italy). 




GOVKKNAI i:XI' KUILDIXG IN JUNKAU, ALASKA— Tliis territory was purchased hy the United 

States iu ISGS — Its area is 590,884 square miles (larger than the (ierman Empire in 

Europe, England, Scotland, Ireland, and France combined). 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

as the fiber travels through the machine. From here it goes to a machine 
to be spun into very hard, twisted thread. Then it is ready for weaving. 
John Kay gave to the world, in 1733, his flying shuttle, and, in 1760, the 
drop-box, an attachment by which different colored threads could be woven 
into the fabric. In 1784, the Reverend Edmund Cartwright invented the 
power loom and revolutionized the industry. Next Joseph Jacquard, of 
France, invented, in 1801, a loom for weaving figured patterns. Leonardo 
da Vinci, the painter of "Mona Lisa," invented the machine which is used 
to-day to trim the pile of cloth. 

Gigantic Packing Industries in the West 

ONE of the greatest American industries is ranching and the slaughter 
of cattle. On our great ranches to-day, awaiting the whim of 
our hunger, are over 60,000,000 head of cattle, 58,000,000 swine, 
and 52,000,000 sheep and lambs — quite a delicate little luncheon. Their 
value exceeds $2,000,000,000 ; so it is rather an extravagant luncheon after 
all. To drive this "living dinner" into our dining-rooms requires more 
than 1,700 slaughter houses and meat packing establishments, employing 
about 110,000 men, women, and children. 

France was the first country to have these modern "meat handling" 
plants. During the reign of Napoleon I, a commission was called together 
to consider the question of "slaughtering animals for food," with the result 
that, in 1818, six abattoirs were built and put into operation in Paris; 
these six are still in use. It was not until i860 that the need for abattoirs 
was felt in America. The West had developed into the greatest meat 
providing region in the whole world, and foreign countries were importing 
our beef. As a central market was needed, the abattoirs were located in 
the stockyards in Chicago, and soon became the most important, the largest, 
and the best equipped in the world. To-day millions of heads of cattle, 
hogs, and sheep are sent to Chicago alone. They are forwarded in airy 
cars, they are watered and fed during transportation, and only the healthier 
animals are selected for slaughter. Chicago stockyards spread over more 
than 500 acres of ground. Huge abattoirs have been erected in Kansas 
City, Omaha, and many other cities, until to-day it is one of the great 
American industries. Wonderful machinery transforms these animals al- 
most instantly into beef, pork, and mutton, which are hurried on refriger- 
ator cars to the homes of America across the seas to the peoples of this 
earth. 

The higher development of abattoirs has rested entirely with America. 
Countless patented inventions have helped to make them what they are, 
and the brains of many men have worked out the problems. The practice 

303 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

of canning meat began about twenty years ago and has come to be one of 
the most important departments of the meat producing industry. These 
large abattoirs have enabled America to outstrip all rivals in the amount of 
meat furnished to the world. The United States produced 3,059,000 tons 
of beef in a single year. The nearest rival, Russia, produced 1,546,000 
tons in that year; while the third highest, Argentina, produced 985,000 
tons in the same period. American beef is used all over the world, being 
exported in cold storage or in tin cans. Only American ingenuity and 
inventiveness have made this possible. 

Growth of the Huge Automobile Industry 

A I ^ O pass through even the leading manufacturing industries in this 
I country would require a lifetime. It is possible here only to sug- 
-^ gest the most conspicuous. The growth of the automobile indus- 
try has been one of our Twentieth-Century marvels. Six million dollars 
were invested in the business about the beginning of the century. Twelve 
years later, it had multiplied to $450,000,000. There were 2,500 persons 
actually employed in about thirty establishments in 1899; there were more 
than 85,000 employed in more than 400 establishments in 1912. With all 
the persons who are affiliated with the industry, including the capacities of 
salesmen and demonstrators, there is an army numbering in the neighbor- 
hood of a quarter of a million. There were 3,500 cars in our country 
about twelve years ago; to-day there are more than a million or about 
twenty times as many as there are passenger coaches on our American rail- 
ways. These figures are constantly changing, at the rate of 300,000 or 
more new cars every year, four-fifths of which, it is said, are sold to Amer- 
icans, the rest being sold in foreign countries. 

What has the automobile actually done for Americans? It has 
worked a new revolution, greater in its results than war. It has brought 
health, wealth, and pleasure; it has made the tourist familiar with the 
out-of-way places of the world, as no railroad could possibly do. It has 
inaugurated a new spirit of travel and thereby greatly increased knowl- 
edge. It has built up the small towns ; it has taken people out of cities to 
the fresh air of the country, instead of crowding them into the heart of the 
congested city. It has greatly increased property values. It is a factor 
in science; the doctor finds it invaluable when hurrying to save a life; 
the hospital sends out its auto-ambulances. The fireman uses it to carry 
himself and his apparatus to the fire. The parcels postman uses it to 
carr}^ his heavy bundles. The shopper utilizes it in her trips to the stores. 
The visitor to a city finds taxicabs awaiting him at the station to con- 
vey him through the crowded streets to a hotel. There are auto-police 

304 



GREAT AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

wagons and auto-commercial trucks. Auto-freighting cars carry the 
precious metals from Costa Rica's mountain-tops to her seaports. Cali- 
fornia auto-trucks carry borax out from Death Valley. There are auto- 
street-sweepers, auto-hand cars, and even auto-chapels, from which mission- 
aries preach the Gospel to those who cannot attend church. 

The automobile is thirty times more efficient than the old mule team. 
It can haul a load of loo tons to a distance of loo miles in twenty hours. 
Furthermore, it is much cheaper than horses. The automobile is doing 
our farming to-day. Its first test was in plowing; it showed that horses 
cost $3.68 an acre, steam power $4.08, and gasoline motor power $1.97 
each acre. An auto plow can do as much work in one day as a two-horse 
team can in six. The marvelous little auto-tractors pull the plow, the 
harrow, the planting and the mowing machines. The automobile has 
proven the farmer's friend. One-fourth of the automobiles sold to-day go 
to farms west of the Mississippi. In Egypt it turns up the desert in the 
very shadow of the Pyramids. 

But one of the greatest of boons that the automobile has renderd to 
civilization is the demand for good roads. During its comparatively short 
career, it has changed the whole highway systems. Not millions, but bil- 
lions of dollars are being expended in building great highways that weave 
their way through the continent like a huge spider's web. The automobile 
has come to stay. It will become more and more general in its use until 
the peoples of the earth are darting from place to place in these veritable 
houses on wheels. Even when the airship lures us into the clouds, the 
automobile will remain the master of the land. 

We might continue this chapter throughout many volumes, but this 
survey suffices to impress upon the reader the democracy of American 
industry. America's vast industries are its great handicraft universities — 
its real senates of national expression. Here the mind goes out from the 
hand into the machine and creates an Industrial Nation and an Industrial 
Age. The machine is endowed with all the powers of the human senses 
— it is a magical creation. The great American industries are nothing less 
than gigantic forums of human progress. The original statesmen are the 
inventors, but the millions of operatives are in turn training to be the 
diplomatists of democracy. Thus, the great American factory, with its 
magical machinery, has washed from the face of the world's industry the 
last vestige of human slavery. It has crowned the labor of the world with 
the diadem of nobility — and the noblest of human attributes is industry. 



305 



PART rv CHAPTER VIII 

GREAT AMERICAN RAILROADS 
AND COMMERCE 



"Nature is the master of talent ; genius is the master of nature." 

— Holland. 



THE genius of modern civilization is — transportation. It is the 
backbone of the anatomy of civilization. For civilization is not 
an abstract thing; it is a physical structure — a huge body formed 
over a gigantic frame and performing its well-defined functions 
through it own vital organs. The newspaper is the heart, the organ of the 
circulatory processes; the telegraph and telephone is the nervous system; 
the railroad is the skeleton of the whole body; the street railways are the 
muscles; and the arteries are the channels of commerce. 

If one was to ask what single factor had done the most for Amer- 
ican progress — what material force had contributed the largest to our de- 
velopment — it is probable that the economists would reply: "The rail- 
road." This is the stupendous power that made possible the Industrial 
Age. It is the miracle that allowed the American nation to stretch its 
limbs across a continent. Without it, neither agriculture, nor manufac- 
turing, nor mining could exist to-day on their gigantic scale. Practically 
every large city in America owes its existence to the genius of transporta- 
tion. It is the burden bearer of all the products of the people and all the 
materials with which they work and live. 

Macaulay must have prophetically referred to the railroad when he 
said: "Of all inventions, the alphabet and printing-press excepted, those 
inventions which abridge distances have done most for the civilization of 
the species." The railroad not only "abridges distances" but it annihilates 
both distance and time. 

The railroad has been the empire builder — it is the genii behind the 
development of the Great West. Through its power the forests become 
great cities; the waste lands pour out abundant riches, the desolate plains 
become peopled by the multitudes. Out of the vast Western wilderness, 
scorned by the greatest statesman of the day, there has been wrought one 
of the greatest modern miracles. Darkest Africa held not more forbidding 
dominion than lay beyond the banks of the Missouri River in these United 
States a generation ago. It took bold spirits to dare to brave the storms 

306 




LARGEST RAILROAD STATION IN THE WORLD— The Grand Central Torminal in New York 

covers over 70 acres, and cost if 180.000.000 — It can hold about 30.000 people — It is 

estimated that 25,000,000 persons pass through this gateway to New York each year. 




GREAT AMERICAN RAILROAD STATIONS— This is the Pennsylvania Station in New York 

City— It covers t^'enty-eight acres, more land than anv other building in the 

world — This structure with site cost $70,000,000. 



GREAT AMERICAN RAILROADS 

of ridicule when it was first suggested that the rivers and mountains 
be spanned by steel rails. In the year 1845, a year before the boundary 
between the United States and British Columbia was settled, a man named 
Asa Whitney petitioned Congress in behalf of a steam road, closing his 
address with the prophetic words : "You will see that it will change the 
whole world." 

This challenge aroused the ridicule of the statesmen. Senator Dick- 
erson, from New Jersey, had in a previous session caused the tabling of 
a bill which favored making Oregon a State. "It is absurd," he said. 
"Why, a member of Congress traveling from his home in Oregon to Wash- 
ington and return, would cover a distance of 9,200 miles, at the rate of 
thirty miles per day. Allowing him forty-four days for Sundays, three 
hundred and fifty days would be consumed, and the member would 
have fourteen days in Washington before he started home. It would be 
quicker to come around Cape Horn or by Behring Straits, Baffin Bay, and 
Davis Strait to the Atlantic, and so to Washington. True, the passage 
is not yet discovered, except upon our maps, but it will be as soon as Oregon 
is made a State." 

No one seemed to believe in the possibilities of the great Western 
dominion of the United States. Even those men who had penetrated the 
heart of the wilderness had no encouraging words for it. We find the 
doughty discoverer, Pike, for whom Pike's Peak was later named officially, 
advising the Government that the region was "incapable of cultivation," 
and that perforce Americans must confine themselves to the banks of the 
Missouri and Mississippi. The Great West by consensus of opinion 
seemed doomed to exile from civilization. 

But in all ages there are a few men with the courage of their con- 
victions. They launched an expedition into the unknown region to de- 
termine suitable routes for a "transcontinental railroad." This private 
exploration began in 1853 under the auspices of Jefferson Davis, then 
the Secretary of War. Ten years later, Lincoln dispatched General Gren- 
ville M. Dodge to take definite surveys for the Pacific Railroad. There 
were then only twenty-six and one-half miles of railroad west of the 
Missouri River. The Government was paying at the rate of $40 per ton 
for every one hundred miles to have supplies carted by wagon train to 
army posts, and there were scarcely any settlements, excepting those de- 
yoted to trapping or mining. 

About the time when the bloody battle of Chickamauga and Chat- 
tanooga were taking place in the East, two bodies of workmen, one in San 
Francisco and the other at Omaha on the Missouri River, broke earth and 
began the great task of laying the first transcontinental railroad through 

309 



AMERICA; THE LAND WE LOVE 

the wilderness. The public was skeptical of success. The financiers 
of the work were called foolhardy, if not worse. Even the workmen on 
the western end of the road had so little faith in the project that they de- 
manded their day's pay before they would work. These discouragements 
were increased by the awful truth that every man employed upon the work 
was in danger of his life, day and night. The Indians did not take kindly 
to the idea and did their best to kill off the workmen and surveyors. A 
constant guard of soldiers was required. The region for the most part 
was destitute of timber or fuel, and these had to be freighted by steamboat 
and wagon train. It was a prodigious undertaking, putting American 
courage to the test, as it never had been before. 

Less than six years after the epochal work had begun the miracle 
had been accomplished — the Great American Desert had been spanned. 
The East was bound to the West, in a union which was to yield vast 
wealth and power to both. The scoffers ceased to scoff, and the whole 
nation arose in jubilee. Some of the larger cities devoted the historic day 
— May lo, 1869 — to a holiday of rejoicing. Out on Promontory Moun- 
tain there existed but a single gap in the line — a gap of one hundred feet. 
Sturdy bodies of workmen stood ready to lay the last rails. The builders 
of the roads, whose indomitable courage had made it possible, gathered 
to witness the historic occasion. Telegraph wires were connected so that 
the news of the blows of the sledges could be flashed to all parts of the 
United States simultaneously. Three spikes of precious metal were se- 
lected close to the connecting link; one was of silver, gold, and iron from 
Arizona; another of silver from Nevada; and the third of gold from Cali- 
fornia. Beside the track stood President Stanford, president of the rail- 
road and governor of California. In his hands he held a silver sledge, 
ready to deliver the first stroke. The second blow was struck by Vice- 
President Durant; succeeding blows were struck by distinguished guests, 
until finally the spikes were driven home by the chief engineers of the two 
roads. Two railroad engines, which had been waiting for the welding of 
the tracks, advanced, and the engineers joined hands with each other as 
they came together. 

The nation could hardly restrain its joy. In San Francisco the blows 
of the sledge were repeated by strokes on the city hall bell and the last 
blow was a signal for the firing of a cannon from Fort Point. It was a 
gala day for the Pacific metropolis, which had thus been virtually lifted 
and placed within a three days' journey of the Atlantic Coast, instead of 
three months. Omaha was raised from a frontier post to a great half- 
way point between the East and the West; its citizens gave vent to their 
joy in monster parades of all its civic organizations, while a hundred guns 

310 



GREAT AlVIERICAN RAILROADS 

boomed on Capitol Hill. Chicago held a procession more than four miles 
in length. New York fired a salute of a hundred guns, while in Phila- 
delphia the historic tones of the bells on Independence Hall rang out the 
glad tidings. It was a great national event, in which all the large cities 
joined in memorable demonstration. 

No man at that time had any comprehension of the great empire of 
wealth which was to arise on sand and wilderness. It was hardly con- 
ceived that great cities might spring up along the way. There was one 
exception : it was Asa Whitney whose prophecy has come true in the space 
of a few decades, and "the railroad has changed the whole world" in 
many respects. It gave Europe a means to send its goods to the Pacific 
coast. It opened an avenue for the silks and spices of the Orient to reach 
the Atlantic States. It served as a pattern for the great transcontinental 
railroads which now exist across Europe and Asia, and which are even being 
forged through the heart of Africa. 

But the greatest change came when the once despised Great American 
Desert blossomed into the great granary of modern civilization. Mighty 
commonwealths arose as if by magic. It will be remembered that, when 
this territory was bought from France for the sum of $15,000,000 in 1803, 
the statesmen raved for decades about the wicked extravagance. Could 
they have looked through the curtain of the future, and seen the great 
cargoes of produce being brought out of this wilderness, their ranting 
would have changed to pseans of joy. From the single State of Ne- 
braska, bordering on the Missouri River, the crop of alfalfa hay alone 
equaled in value in a single year the amount of money Napoleon received 
from the United States for the Louisiana Territory. 

Let us take a hasty tour through these States west of the Missouri 
River and see what they are doing to repay the price of their birthright. 
First on the tour is Nebraska. Looking in her tax books, we find that 
the real and personal property in this commonwealth is valued at $600,- 
000,000 — and this is based on a one-fifth valuation; in other words, "that 
region of savages and wild beasts," as Daniel Webster called it, is worth 
three billion dollars. Next comes Kansas, "the treeless plain," which 
in a single year produces farm products and live stock valued at nearly 
$500,000,000. Adjoining is Colorado, once the despair of statesmen, 
which in the space of a half century has disgorged from her beautiful 
mountains more than a billion dollars in gold, silver, lead and copper; and 
still, if all these mines were shut down, the State would be independently 
rich in her agricultural products. 

We will now visit the tier of States along the north. We find Wy- 
oming, seamed with coal veins and saturated with oil, but still standing 

311 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

forth among the Western States as a mammoth producer of agricultural 
products and livestock, the former bringing in a recent year ten million 
dollars more than the whole Louisiana Territory cost the United States. 
Utah is a modern garden spot on which flourish great empires of sugar- 
beets, mammoth communities of beehives, sweet scented forests of fruit 
trees, while out of its bosom pour streams of gold, silver, copper, lead, 
zinc, and coal, whose total valuation in one year reached nearly twice 
the purchase price of the whole "wilderness." Then there is rugged 
Idaho, which added in a single year nearly $100,000,000 to the wealth of 
the nation. Along the Canadian border is Montana which digs from its 
bosom, and clips from its sheep, each year a fortune valued at more than 
$75,000,000. 

Bordering the Pacific are three mighty commonwealths, Oregon, 
whose name was long mentioned in sarcastic terms in the National Con- 
gress, is to-day a cornucopia pouring forth its wealth. The value of the 
lumber in its forests is estimated at the colossal figure of $3,500,000,- 
000. Oregonians tell you that "half the world comes to us for lumber." 
Washington, a still younger State, is able to exhibit an overflowing ex- 
chequer. Her tax books show that in a recent year she had a total prop- 
erty valuation of nearly $800,000,000; she, too, is part of that "rock- 
bound, cheerless and uninviting coast," which Daniel Webster, in a speech 
before the United States Senate, declared to be "without value." The 
third and last of these Pacific commonwealths, on our hasty journey, is 
bounteous California. It would seem unnecessary to recite the wealth of 
this State. Its taxable property alone is estimated at $2,300,000,000; and 
it pours out its riches in sums that stagger the imagination. 

This is a glimpse of the great commonwealths which lie west of the 
Missouri; this is the dominion which wise men once proclaimed to the 
world as "worthless." This is the region that was pronounced from the 
seats of the mighty as a region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, 
of shifting sands and whirling winds, of dust, of cactus and prairie-dogs 
- — the region that was reclaimed by the railroad. The average American 
does not fully appreciate what a mighty railroad system he has in this 
country. If all the main track railways in the United States were welded 
into one continuous system, it would reach to and extend a distance of 
100,000 miles beyond the moon, which is some quarter of a million miles 
away from our earth. If this main track railway system were laid around 
the earth at the equator, it would form nine tracks of equal length, over 
which nine of the fastest engines, traveling at the topmost speed ever 
attained (115 miles an hour), would complete the circuit in about nine 
days. The rails of a railroad are but a single item in its equipment. 

3X2 




SUNSET ON '-DEAD SEA OP AMERICA" — This is a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake in Etah— 
It is 80 miles in length and 30 miles in width — The lake lies in the 
) heart of a vast inter-mountaih plateau. 




MAMMOTH HOT SPRI.\(iS IN VKLLOWSToNE I'AliK— -lieirs Half Acre," a steaming ahy.s 

about 30 feet deep in limestone formation — Nearby is a boiling lake 

which bubbles in beautiful colors. 



GREAT AMERICAN RAILROADS 

Mighty forests have been cut down to supply the ties on which the rails 
rest. If it were necessary to transport all these ties to Europe — there 
are about 900,000,000 of them — it would require the services of all the 
sailing and steam vessels flying the American flag, and each ship would 
carry a cargo consisting of 34,000 each. And the spikes which secure the 
rails to the ties — there are enough to supply each living individual on earth 
with two apiece. 

There were 509,000 miles of railroad in the entire world in 1913, 
and of this mileage 234,000 miles or about 46 per cent, are in the United 
States. In that same year, Congress passed a bill providing for the valua- 
tion of our railroads. At that time it was estimated by the railroad 
statisticians of the country that the railroads were worth $19,000,000,- 
000. But so enormous is the task that Congress was asked to make an 
appropriation to do the work — it is said that before it is finished it will 
take $20,000,000. So to actually make an approximately correct valua- 
tion of the railroads of this country will require enough capital to build 
a great railroad. Every piece of property is to be listed and used. This 
means a literal count of the ties, rails, coupling pins, cars, buildings, 
original cost of production and cost of reproduction, franchises and other 
property. 

American roads carried 1,034,081,346 passengers in 1914. That 
is nearly two-thirds of the number of people inhabiting the whole globe. 
The American railroads carried a sixth as many passengers as all the rest 
of the railroads of the world, though the American people constitute only 
about one-sixteenth of the world's population. These same roads car- 
ried 264,080,745,058 tons of freight one mile. To do this work these 
roads had in their service 51,490 passenger cars and 2,331,184 freight and 
Other cars. Of these latter there were 1,700,000 freight cars. There 
are enough cars to give one to every inhabitant living in Norway; or 
enough to form a grand pageant on the railway to the moon, allowing 
ten cars to every mile of track. The modern passenger coaches cost from 
$8,000 to $16,000 each, and the luxurious Pullmans sometimes cost as 
much as $30,000 apiece. It required nearly two million persons to 
operate them and they paid dividends which exceeded more than $100,- 
000,000 the amount of money which the people of Switzerland had in their 
communal and private banks. These cars would make a train 5,682 
miles in length and would reach from San Francisco to New York and 
back almost to Denver. If each car were loaded with 10,000 pounds of 
freight it would take 42,500 locomotives to pull the train. If each pas- 
senger coach carried fifty people, 2,574,500 passengers could travel on 
the passenger train. The whole city of Chicago could travel on tliat train, 

315 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

and Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland and St. Louis could all get aboard, but 
the head locomotive would be in Washington before the locomotive at the 
rear had reached New York. All this gives a bird's-eye view of the great 
railroad capacity of this country. 

These facts are the more marvelous when we consider that the rail- 
road had its birth but about three generations ago, beginning historically 
with the pioneer steam railway stretching fifteen miles westward from 
Baltimore, and in the sam.e year that Webster first published his diction- 
ary (1828). There were other railroads in the United States at the 
time, notably the one in Massachusetts which, operated by horse-power, 
drew granite from the quarries at Ouincy to the Neponset River. In 
the light of present day achievements, it is curious to learn that the rail- 
road was considered a visionary idea in its beginning, that few men were 
so venturesome as to admit that it ever could successfully compete with 
canals, the favorite of that day, for freighting purposes. It was the state 
engineer of Virginia who solemnly declared "that a rate of speed of more 
than six miles an hour would exceed the bounds of prudence, though some 
sanguinary advocates of railways extend this limit to nine miles an hour." 

Before the Nineteenth Century, mankind had to depend upon their 
own feet, or the back of a horse, or, in some more favored cases, upon a 
wheeled vehicle, to traverse the earth. When we consider that when Na- 
poleon hurried his armies over the Alps, just before the dawn of the Nine- 
teenth Century, he used about the same means of transportation and did 
not exceed the speed made by his illustrious predecessor, Csesar, over the 
same route with his Roman army in the days preceding Christ's appearance 
on earth, you will understand what the railroad means to modern civiliza- 
tion in the matter of abridging distances. 

It required about two and a half centuries for American civilization 
to extend inland from the Atlantic to the banks of the Missouri River, 
virtually traversing the distance afoot, or at best, on horseback. But 
with the aid of the railroad, after it had come into general use, it swept 
on over the Missouri and within a few decades had converted the forbid- 
ding wilderness to the v/estward into a domain of prodigious wealth and 
culture, carrying colonization clear to the distant shores of the Pacific. 

The benefits accruing to the Americans from their railroads are be- 
yond calculation. Let us regard it in the light of what Macaulay said 
about abridging distances. When we reduce the time of travel between 
cities, we virtually reduce the intervening distance. By this measure- 
ment let us compare travel in the United States in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury with that of the Nineteenth or Twentieth. Up to within a few years 
of the beginning of the American Revolution, it required about thirteen 

816 



GREAT AMERICAN RAILROADS 

days of laborious and perilous travel to go from New York to Boston. 
In this time the modern traveler could make the round trip between New 
York and San Francisco and still have a week left over in which to view 
either of the great cities. Then it required about thirty days to travel 
from Baltimore to New Orleans; to-day it is a journey of as many hours. 
From Massachusetts to North Carolina the modern train schedule reads 
twenty hours, instead of twenty days of the early Nineteenth Century. 

We are living through the mightiest age that the world has yet known. 
In the span of a single life of four score years, the world has awakened 
from its slumbers like a mighty giant and shaken off the habits and cus- 
toms of the centuries. Knowledge, plenty and beneficence abound. The 
earth's dark and silent places are now known and mapped, and are visited 
in luxury and safety by the tourist. The things that a generation ago only 
those of wealth could hope to own or see are to-day the common heritages 
of the modern laborer. 

The world has been made over again in the last generation. The 
modern locomotive literally picked up our western frontier along the 
Missouri and carried it on its pilot to the beating surge of the Pacific. 
It has magically touched barren spots in the desert and created populous 
and rich cities and farm lands. It has hurtled over or through mountain 
ranges, or across deep roaring rivers or broad bosomed inland seas, while 
drawing behind it palatial traveling coaches ladened with human freight. 

How long could our great cites, our rural districts, our mighty in- 
dustries and vast commercial interests exist without the railroad*? The 
locomotive carries modern civilization upon its pilot. A few hours' cessa- 
tion of its ceaseless energy and millions of people would be in idleness 
and v/ant. The wheat of the field, the produce of the farms, the products 
of the factories would be useless and unprofitable. These steel machines 
must keep in never-ending motion to sustain and strengthen modern civili- 
zation, to banish distances, to spread the mails and knowledge broadcast, 
to mold the whole L:nd into a neighborhood and make possible the modern 
business world. 

America Gave the Steamship to the World 

THEN, there is another modern miracle in the science of transpor- 
tation — it is the steamship. Without it, the nations of the world 
would still be groping in comparative ignorance, poverty, and 
peril. With it, the world has been re-modeled, reformed, and enlight- 
ened. Together with the railroad, it has formed a girdle around the earth. 
It has linked the continents so that man in safety and luxury can circum- 
navigate the globe to-day in about the same time it required post-riders to 

317 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

bring the news of the battle of New Orleans to Washington a hundred 
years ago. It has, as if by magic, converted the great rivers of the world 
from mere streams of running water into vast throbbing highways of 
commerce and travel which are building up the wealth of nations and in- 
dividuals. 

If all the ships sailing under the American flag were formed for re- 
view there would be a grand pageant of more than twenty-six thousand 
vessels. More than half of them would be propelled by steam. This vast 
fleet of ships would have a combined gross tonnage or capacity of nearly 
eight million tons. 

The steamship has proved the conqueror of the seas. Great levi- 
athans, measuring nearly nine hundred feet in length, dash across the 
oceans at the rate of an express train. A mighty fleet of luxurious floating 
palaces plies between Europe and America at a speed so great that a trav- 
eler can eat a farewell lunch in Londbn on Saturday and dine in New 
York on the following Thursday. Less than a century ago there was not 
a steamboat afloat upon the open sea. Measured by the speed-standards 
of to-day, America was nearly seventy thousand miles away from Europe 
in the days of Henry Hudson. Or in other words, in the time required by 
Hudson's Half Moon to sail from Amsterdam to New York, a modern 
ocean liner could sail a distance of nearly seventy thousand miles, or circle 
the globe nearly three times. 

The story of man's early attempts to conquer the seas is more inter- 
esting than fiction. He first paddled across a stream on a log; later fas- 
tened two or more logs together to form a raft; then he hollowed out the 
log and made a dug-out. Then came canoes made of bark or skins 
stretched over a framework, and finally ships built by carpenters. The 
first use of oars as power began in the earliest Egyptian vessels, dating 
back to loo b. c; they had as many as twenty-two oarsmen on each side 
of the vessel. Then the Phoenicians added decks to their vessels. The 
height of shipbuilding seems to have been reached in the reign of Ptolemy 
Philopator, when tradition tells about a forty-decked vessel, which regis- 
tered 11,320 tons. Then sails were added by the Phoenicians, to force 
the winds to relieve the muscles of the men at the oars. 

In the Twelfth Century there came an impulse which set the shipping 
circles agog, and the period of exploration began. It was the discovery 
and general adoption of the compass by Europeans. It is said, however, 
that the Chinese were familiar with the instrument more than two thou- 
sand years before Christ. With this wonderful little instrument to guide 
their ships, the mariners became bolder and ventured out into the mysterious 
oceans. This resulted in the great discovery of the New World and other 

318 




BATTLE ON LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN IN AMERICAN CIVIL WAK— This fierce comhat known 

as "The Battle in the Clouds" was fought on November 24, 186.'! — Federal army 

charged up Kocky Precipice, 1,700 feet above the valley. 





BIRTH OF THE IRONCLAD BATTLESHIP IN WORLD'S HISTORY— Historic conflict between 

the Monitor and the Merrimac. on Marcli "J, l.SC>2 — It was the beginning of a new 

era in naval warfare — This was followed later by the first submarine. 



GREAT AMERICAN RAILROADS 

great voyages of exploration. Then began the tide of immigration into 
America. The voyage was one of peril, with death, starvation, and sick- 
ness always present. It was a voyage which required on the average three 
months of extreme hardship. 

Sails and oars served mankind well for many centuries, but now his 
needs demanded a new motive power. There were many weird and crude 
ideas suggested. One was to adapt the treadmill to a boat, worked by 
either man or beast and attached to paddle-wheels slung over the side of 
the vessel. These attempts to conquer the wind were met with storms of 
disapproval. The good people declared vehemently that it was sinful 
and an insult to Divine Providence to drive a vessel against wind and 
tide. The inventor's ideas were met with ridicule. 

It remained for the Americans to solve the problem. Four patents 
were granted to inventors before the nation was two years old. The first 
of these was John Fitch, who contrived a crude steam vessel, appearing 
much like a many-legged spider walking on water. His craft traveled up 
and down the Delaware River for three months in 1793 at the rate of 
thirty miles in thirteen hours. Eleven years later. Colonel John Stevens 
appeared on the Hudson River with a twin-screw steamer which sped across 
the river at the rate of six miles an hour. Four years later, he startled 
the world by launching a paddle-wheel steamer and sailing through the 
open sea from New York to Philadelphia — the first successful attempt in 
the world of a steam driven vessel to ride the boundless ocean. 

It was in 1807 that the event occurred which was destined to point 
the way to the revolution of the world's commerce as well as the world's 
navies. It was in this year that the historic Clermont^ the product 
of the brain and energy of Robert Fulton, was launched, amid jeers of 
ridicule and disbelief, at Corlears Hook Ferry, and began her momentous 
voyage up the Hudson River to Albany. From stem to stern she meas- 
ured about 150 feet, and was "a monster moving on the water, defying 
winds and tides, and breathing smoke and flame." Her motive power 
was furnished by a steam engine connected with paddle-wheels hung over 
her sides. The Clermont performed the miracle of traveling the 150 miles 
which lay between New York and Albany in the remarkable time of thirty- 
two hours. It would have required seventy-five days for the Clermont to 
cross the Atlantic ocean. The fastest modern liner, six times as long and 
six times as broad, carrying 480 times as much freight and more than a 
thousand passengers, has crossed the Atlantic in four days, ten hours, and 
fifty-one minutes. 

The world was slow in placing faith in a new miracle of the seas. 
Five years elapsed from the launching of the Clermont before the first 

321 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

steam-driven ferry-boat crossed the Hudson between New York and New 
Jersey; ten years before Boston saw the first steamboat enter her harbor; 
eleven years passed before the first steam vessel sailed from Buffalo 
through the Great Lakes to Detroit; and it was twelve years before the 
first ship set forth upon the world's first transatlantic voyage under the 
power of steam. 

The first steamship to sail from America to Europe was the Savannah, 
a sailing packet equipped with an engine, boiler, and iron paddle-wheels. 
She slipped from her moorings at Savannah, Georgia, on the 26th day of 
May, in 1819, and sailed down over the horizon. Twenty-five days later, 
a fleet of three-decked, wooden-sided, and sail-propelled men-of-war and 
stately merchant ships, cruising off the coast of England, was startled at 
the apparition which appeared in the waters before them. Through a set 
of yellow sails came clouds of pitch pine and coal smoke. The decks of 
the watching ships resounded with the cry of "Fire." When they read 
the signal flags of the Savannah, they were nonplussed to learn she was 
not afire, but was sailing under her new power — steam. They watched 
her curiously as she slipped gracefully by and headed in toward Liverpool. 

The story of the ocean steamships is the story of progress. Modern 
science has replaced the old wooden sides with massive sheer walls of 
steel. The decks have been increased in size and number until to-day a 
modem ocean liner resembles in effect a modem hotel, in which its passen- 
gers are transported from deck to deck by elevators. The bows have 
drawn further and further away from the sterns, until now the whole 
vessel measures nearly a thousand feet in length; if stood on end, one of 
them would overtop the highest office building in the world. All the 
luxury of the ages, as well as their necessities, has been gathered and in- 
corporated into the interiors of these ships, until they are veritably float- 
ing cities made of all the splendor of ancient despots. 

There are hundreds of communities in our nation whose total popula- 
tion could be transported across the Atlantic in a single one of the ves- 
sels, whose passenger capacity is estimated at over 4,000 persons. These 
passengers have at their command all the comforts of home. One of the 
latest ships has a chapel, in which religious services are conducted, while 
theatres, stores, tailor shops, gymnasiums, ballrooms, and a score of other 
traces of modern life are to be found on nearly all our ocean liners. 

The largest passenger-carrying river steamships in the world are on 
the Hudson. They carry 6,000 persons on the historic route between New 
York and Albany. The steamships on the Mississippi River and the Great 
Lakes have been important economic factors in the development of the 
interior dominion of the American continent. The coming years will wit- 
ness a great development of our inland waterways. 

322 



GREAT AMERICAN RAILROADS 

American Continent a Network of Street Railways 

THIS chapter on transportation must give consideration also to the 
economic value of the street railway. The street car is the mod- 
ern magician that has threaded its way through our thoroughfares 
and united our towns and cities; it has formed a gigantic network over 
our states over which we may travel in nearly any direction at any mo- 
ment of the day to any desired destination. It has done more than this — 
it has broken down the barriers that so long held our towns and villages 
in seclusion and has transformed them into modern, progressive communi- 
ties. It has linked them to the great outside world and has made them an 
important part of it. It was only a few years ago when the only way to 
get out of town was to walk, or to take the old stage coaches. Then came 
the omnibus to carry us from place to place within town limits. 

The first street railway proper was put in operation in New York 
in 1831. Horses were used as motor power, but the omnibus gave way to 
a sort of carriage that ran on rails. These rails consisted of timbers 
resting on edge, the upper edge covered with a strip of metal. The 
horses were displaced by crude steam-engines in 1832, but they were so 
unreliable that in 1845 the horses were again employed. The horse car 
developed from this innovation, till finally our grandfathers came to look 
at the jolting, rattling, bobbing contraption as a great convenience. The 
idea was thus born in New York and taken up by various other American 
cities as well as the cities of Europe. Philadelphia tried it first in 1857. 
The French called it "the American railway." 

In many American cities, nature helped along the development of the 
street railway. Some American cities, notably San Francisco and St. 
Louis, were so hilly as to make the ordinary railways almost impossible. 
Other means were sought to propel cars, and, in 1873, Andrew S. Hallidie 
equipped the Clay Street Railway of San Francisco with a cable-car sys- 
tem. A slot was built between the two car rails, and in this a heavy 
cable traveled along. The cars were equipped with ''grips" that could 
catch hold of this traveling cable, and the vehicle was carried along with 
it. When it was desired to stop the car, the grip released its hold on the 
cable and the car ran "dead." With the coming of the cable-car, peo- 
ple first raised the now familiar cry, "The horse must go." St. Louis, 
Chicago, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and New York adopted the cable sys- 
tem. There were 700 miles of cable car railways throughout the United 
States by 1894. ^^^ ^^^^^ many disadvantages, arising chiefly from want 
of proper control, soon led to their abandonment. 

There was erected in 1872 what was regarded as a "freak" railway 

323 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

in New York — the elevated railroad. Its freakishness lay in the fact 
that its rails were not placed on the ground, but rested thirty feet or more 
above it on an elongated or continuous bridge. This was the first of its 
kind in the world. Soon there were about forty miles of elevated rail- 
road on Manhattan Island alone. People were slow in taking to this new 
method of transportation, because of its insecure appearance, but grad- 
ually New Yorkers came to depend almost entirely on them, in spite of 
their noise and dirt. Chicago and Boston have been the only other Amer- 
ican cities to adopt elevated railroads. Paris, Liverpool, and Berlin also 
adopted the idea. 

The American cities, however, were still dependent on the older 
methods of transportation until 1884, when the first practical trolley- 
car was run in Kansas City — this is the beginning of the real era of the 
street railway — the era of electric power. Various attempts had been 
made to apply electricity to vehicles for motive power. As early as 1836, 
a workman named Davenport had tried it in Brandon, Vermont. His 
electric motor was crude, and his experiment bore no fruit. But when 
the mighty genius of Edison was brought to bear, success was assured. 
He, in conjunction with Stephen D. Field, made some experiments over a 
period lasting from 1879 ^^ 1883, and, at the Chicago Railway Exhibit 
held in the latter year, they built a 1,500 foot system. To Richmond, 
Virginia, however, belongs the distinction of being the first city in the 
world to have on its streets a really practical, as well as tensive, electric 
system of cars, when F. J. Prague installed thirteen miles of electric rail- 
way there in 1884. 

The growth of the street railway since 1884 has been astounding. 
The larger cities are crossed and recrossed by hundreds of lines. There 
were 1,261 miles of track in use by street railways using all kinds of 
power in 1890. Twenty years later there were 23,059 miles of track be- 
ing used by electrically equipped systems alone, and the number of passen- 
gers carried by all the street railways of the country was 7,441,114,508. 
The aid that the electric car has given to business is incalculable. By 
its means, not only are the different parts of the city linked together, but 
whole regions are connected. 

The street railway system is America's gift to traveling humanity. 
It has primarily proved of immense advantage to ourselves, who live in a 
country of vast distances. But from Petrograd to Capetown, from 
Tokio to Rio de Janeiro, wherever, in fact, civilized men foregather in 
large numbers — the street railway is daily ministering to the necessities 
and the pleasures of the people. 

324 




TROPICAL r.EAUTY OF AMERICA— Along St. George. Florida— This lionutiful Land of Flowers 
contains 4,440 square miles of lakes, lagoons and rivers — Its coastline, including 
islands, is 1,145 miles long — Its greatest river is St. John's. 




•^L^-^i^'^I'^ **!'' '^'III^ WHITE MOUXTAI.XS Xcw Hampshire hills culminate in Mount Washliu 
6,'-i0 foot high — Largest of its lakes is sevent.v square miles and contains 264 islands — 
This region has been immortalized in art and literature. 




GREAT AMERICAN INVENTORS AND SCIENTISTS — Tliis rare engraving by John Sartain brings us before 

the genius that has revolutionized the world — American inventive skill and scientific discovery 

have brought forth the modern era of civilization — The American race is the most creative 




I'ORTRVITS OF EPOCH BUILDERS — Here we look npon Morse, the inventor of the telegraph; Howe, 

inventor of the sewing machine; Dr. Morton, discoverer of anaesthesia: McCormick, inventor of modern 

agricultural machinery ; Goodyear, discoverer of the vulcanizing process in rubber ; and many others. 



PART IV CHAPTER IX 



GREAT AMERICAN MINES 



The glorious sun 
Stays in his course, and plays the alchymist; 
Turning, with splendour of his precious eye, 
The meagre, cloddy earth to glittering gold. 
— Shakespeare. 



MOTHER NATURE is surely bountiful in the riches that she 
has deposited on the American continent. There is no place 
on the face of the earth where she has been more generous. 
The legends of the ancient argosies and the trail of the golden 
fleece are all brought into realization on the Western Hemisphere. Here, 
we find the wealth of Croesus many fold. The mountains and rivers bring 
forth gold and silver; the breast of the earth is nourished with coal and 
iron and ores. Rich veins run through the rocks like blood vessels in the 
human body. 

The future of every nation is not alone in its form of government or in 
the genius of its people — these are insufficient in themselves. Man can- 
not develop himself without the complement of nature. All riches begin 
in the earth. The chief asset of every people is first in the resources locked 
within the ground which they occupy; and secondly their skill and industry 
in developing these natural resources. 

The American people have become a powerful race because they have 
had the raw materials at their command and the energy and industry to 
utilize them. The inexhaustible wealth of the continent has given them 
large opportunities — and wealth is largely a matter of the utilization of 
opportunities. We have built our system of civilization on solid earth — 
bed rock. It is not a theory in economics, nor an ideal in philosophy, nor 
a vision of sestheticism — it is erected on the adamant foundation of the 
geological ages — the science of mining and agriculture. In this chapter 
we will visit the great American mines and assay our natural resources. 
We shall see that we have built civilization not on shifting sands but on 
foundations as indestructible as the mountains. Every dollar of riches 
that we may display in our social system is but a feeble expression of the 
illimitable riches behind it in the rock-ribbed vaults of the earth. 

We have erected a democracy, but underneath it is a kingdom of 
precious metals and ores more regal than any of the ancient oligarchies — 

329 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

and more despotic in its control over our welfare — heat, light, transporta- 
tion, are servile to the kings that from their subterranean thrones rule 
humanity. 

America is a mineral crowned king to all the world. America, years 
ago, took King Coal's crown from his merry old soul in England and 
brought it over here where it is likely to remain as long as men fire furnaces. 
This country now digs from its mines annually 600,000,000 tons of coal. 
This coal is worth at the mouth of the mines $800,000,000. There is no 
single instance in all our records as a people that more illuminates the 
character and progress than our leaping and bounding increase in the output 
of our coal mines. We have doubled the output in fifteen years and have 
mined more than eight times that of twenty-five years ago. We are now 
increasing the output from 35,000,000 to 50,000,000 tons every year and 
with the opening of the Panama Canal we are fast on the way to furnishing 
the world with the cheapest fuel it has ever known. 

Nearly 800,000 men are employed in our coal industry. If a single 
horse-power can be produced from the burning of two and one-half pounds 
of coal in a furnace, it will at once be seen how enormously has our coal 
output increased our power engine capacity. The gas engine has increased 
the horse-power of coal fifty per cent, at least within the last fifteen years. 
Our 600,000,000 tons of coal, if it could all be put into one furnace and 
fired, would produce enough power to drive this planet out of its orbit if it 
could be directed against it. The geologic survey claims to have scientifi- 
cally uncovered 15,000,000,000 tons of coal in Alaska and there is treble 
that much in the United States proper. 

Coal is buried power. The mammoth ferns and club-mosses of the 
Carboniferous Age gathered the sunbeams, storing the carbon they brought 
to them, and finally were submerged during the writhings of the forming 
earth under masses of sand and rock and silt. Thus the Creator deposited 
in our little planet His sunbeams, so that when our earth had become one 
of varying climates and seasons (in the Carboniferous Age there were no 
seasons nor changing temperatures), man would have a fuel to warm his 
body and power to assist him in his mighty achievements. The abundant 
forest trees supplied the ancient with sufficient fuel, so they did not need 
coal. Twelve centuries after the birth of Christ mankind began to use 
such coal as could be found in England and a few other civilized countries. 
Americans did not begin their great coal industry until about the dawn of 
the Nineteenth Century. Coal had been known long before then; Father 
Hennepin had accidentally discovered it along the banks of the Illinois 
River in 1679; forty years later, a Virginia boy discovered some in his na- 
tive state ; and a Pennsylvania hunter, by the name of Ginter, found some 

330 



GREAT AMERICAN MINES 

under an up-rooted tree. Its first use was discovered by Obadiah Gore, 
who burned coal in his smith- forge in Wilkesbarre, in 1769, and Judge 
Jesse Fell used it in a grate to heat his room in 1808. This was the genesis 
of the American coal industry. 

At the first centennial of the American coal industry, dating from 
Judge Fell's discovery, there were more persons engaged rescuing "buried 
power" in the United States than there were Americans earning their liveli- 
hood as teamsters, hackmen, draymen, and the like. A coal-driver blocks 
the wheel of his cart with a lump of coal. There is enough energy stored 
in that lump to hurl his cart to destruction. That lump, if it weighs 
exactly one pound, contains enough sunshine-energy to lift forty-seven tons 
one hundred feet in the air in the space of a minute ; it is capable of running 
an electric car, filled to capacity with passengers, for a distance of two and 
a half miles at the rate of twenty miles an hour; or it would propel a 
train of six ordinary coaches and a heavy Pullman and sleeper one-sixth of 
a mile at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour. That one-pound lump of 
coal could perform in one minute all the work that five powerful men could 
accomplish in eight hours — it would require the united efforts of 2,800 men 
to accomplish as much work in a minute as the lump of coal can do. It is 
the great labor saver of civilization. 

That is the power of coal. By it we are enabled to live through 
frigid climates and seasons, to erect gigantic structures, and to journey to 
all parts of the earth, either by land or sea. Coal mining is a battle of 
giants, human and elemental. Man is the general, and electricity and 
compressed air make up the ranks in this warfare. Let us visit our great 
Pennsylvania coal districts. We enter the elevator cage and descend to 
the bottom of the main shaft — one mine is more than a thousand feet below 
the surface. Here we step out into a vast subterranean house, divided into 
corridors which lead to various rooms. Along these corridors, kept venti- 
lated by huge fans and connected with each other by telephone systems, 
rumble what appear to be miniature electric trains, conveying the coal to 
hoisting buckets. On the return trip, one of these electric engines will 
carry us into the depths of the mine, whose intense darkness is partially 
relieved by the patent lamp upon our caps. Arriving at the working face, 
we find the miner, operating an electrically driven machine, whose series of 
knives set upon an endless chain gash and tear at the coal vein. In another 
room we find another miner drilling holes in the face of the vein with a 
compressed air machine, making ready for the blasting charges. As we 
attempt to enter another room, a miner suddenly appears out of the dark- 
ened depths to warn us of a blast. His comrade pushes the button of an 
electric battery, and the electric impulse darts along the wires into the 

331 



AMERICA: THE LANQ WE LOVE 

mass of blasting powder. A muffled roar and tumbling earth tell their 
own story. 

As we return to the surface let us follow a load of coal as it is sent 
to the breakers to be broken into marketable sizes and cleaned. First it 
passes through the screen made up of bars about six inches apart to another 
screen whose openings are about three inches apart. It is on these screens 
that the coal is cleaned, boys picking out the slate and other foreign ele- 
ments. Then it passes onward, being alternately run through rollers to be 
broken up into small sizes and then to screens to be cleaned. When it 
emerges, it is in various forms familiar to the housewife, the furnace man, 
and the engineers. 

But King Coal would never be at home in America without his forge. 
The earth must hold much of him in its dark bosom till the coming of 
King Iron. This latter King left his old throne in England and moved 
to America about the same time King Coal did. At once Europe grew 
uneasy, for she had lost two old kings that had given her long primacy in 
the world's markets and America at the same time became a world power. 
Our great corn, wheat and cotton kings are international monarchs, but 
when the black diamond and armor kings set up their thrones among us, 
Europe became anxious. She began to study us with new eyes. 

The United States produced 35,500,000 tons of iron and manu- 
factured 31,000,000 tons of steel in 1914. Germany, our nearest competi- 
tor, produced 19,000,000 tons and England, so long the maker of the 
world's steel, stands to-day at 10,000,000 tons. We make more steel than 
both of the two greatest industrial centers of Europe, and all around the 
world stands our steel bridges even in the territories of our competitors. 
Our steel has made it possible for Russia to span Europe and Asia with the 
trans-Siberian Railway. It has made the Cape-to-Cairo project a practical 
dream. The world's great navies of superdreadnoughts never could have 
been realized until America's furnaces had reduced the price of steel. The 
prices of the steel armor in the big ships to-day would have sunk the ship 
thirty years ago. 

But the greater part of this enormous output of steel went into the 
framing of houses in our great cities. There are far over 50,000 new 
steel framed buildings in the hundred biggest cities of this country and 
they are rising by the hundreds every month. Our steel has given the 
world the elevator, reduced fire insurance, and raised the skyscraper. 
What would the world be without America's cheap coal and steel for 
power, for bridges, for railroads, for cannon, and battleships? 

Iron is the most wonderful of the earth's natural treasures. Its 
presence can be traced in every phase of life. The food we eat has been 

332 




GREAT QUARRIES OF THE UNITED STATES — There are more than 6,000 quarries in this 

country, with an annual product valued at over $100,006,000 — ^Some of the most 

beautiful marble, granite, and limestone in the world comes from America. 




OIL INDUSTRY IX THE UNITED STATES — America is the world's oil kins— Its output ex- 
ceeds 10,000,000.000 gallons a year — Value of refined product is nearly .?12, 000.000,000 a 
year — It eiupldys a vast army of men and has created stupendous Avoalth. 




I 



FISH INDUSTUY IN UNITED STATES. — America produces more flsh than any other country 

in the world — Annual catch is valued at .1:70,000,000 — It give.s employment to lil.T.OOO 

persons — Government and State commissions liave stocked the streanis of this country. 



GREAT AMERICAN MINES 

cooked in iron utensils. The clothes we wear have been made by iron 
machinery. The houses and offices we live and work in have been built by 
and of iron. Our vehicles, over land or sea or in the air, are made of iron. 
In fact it is everywhere — in your veins, in the satin ribbon, it tinges the 
rosy skin of the apple. 

Iron has always existed ; when it was first discovered, or who was the 
discoverer, is unknown. The story reaches back into the dim twilight of 
man's existence, where shadows and realities are inextricably mingled. 
Amid these shadows stands forth the figure of Tubal-Cain, turning iron 
into agricultural instruments and weapons of war, hundreds of years before 
the flood swept the earth, and about six generations after Adam. Many 
centuries later, we find Og, King of Bashan, sleeping upon an iron bed- 
stead; and still later we find that the Israelites have been promised, as 
especially desirable, a land whose stones are iron. We see that the bridge 
builders of Babylon fastened huge stones together with bands of iron, fixed 
in place by molten lead. 

When iron becomes record, and not mere conjecture, we find frequent 
evidence of the use of iron. We also find that it was held as too valuable 
a metal for ordinary uses, King Og's bedstead being considered the height 
of luxury, just as a bedstead of gold would be to-day. Therein lies the 
magic of my story. By the wonderful methods we have of mining the 
ore and of refining it until it is suitable for our purposes, we of the modern 
generations can produce a metal for the most humble uses much cheaper 
than any other ordinary metal. Who to-day would consider wearing a 
necklace or a ring of iron, as did some of those ancient belles'? 

Iron mining has flourished in more than half of the commonwealths 
forming our United States at some time during their history. As one 
deposit was exhausted, or as a new and richer deposit was discovered, the 
miners moved onward. To-day the center of the industry rests around 
Lake Superior, and the State of Minnesota is the greatest producer. The 
American iron-workers — there are about a million engaged in all branches 
of the iron and steel industry — produce about a billion dollars' worth of ore 
every year, or more than a third of all mined throughout the world. The 
miners in some of the Lake Superior "pits" look as if they were pigmies to 
spectators at the mouth of the shaft. The mines near Vermillion Lake 
extend more than 1,000 feet into the bowels of the earth, where the miners 
are digging out hard-ore and sending it to the surface in huge buckets. In 
another district the miners look like human moles burrowing under the 
earth, until they have reproduced a rabbit's warren. Then they blow this 
up with blasting powder, to secure the precious ore. Great ore-ships take 
most of the ore from the mines to the iron and steel centers, where it passes 

335 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

through the smelting process. Pittsburgh is to-day the largest center in the 
world. There one will find mammoth furnaces — great cones, lined on the 
outside with masonry and on the inside with steel jackets, between which a 
constant flow of water passes. They stand ninety feet above the ground, 
and at their tops are conical caps, also kept cool by circulating water. 
Through these the ore is dropped into the fiery interior, whose heat averages 
about 550 degrees. As the gases generate, they pass off to an engine which 
utilizes them to heat the blast of the furnace. The fierce flames melt the 
ore, separating the dross from the iron. The latter passes out through one 
side of the furnace into sand channels to cool into "pigs," while the dross 
or "slag," passes out in another direction. This is the iron that one will 
find in myriad forms in every-day life, in telephone, or tea kettle, mowing 
machine or locomotive. 

Then comes King Copper — without this Bronze King for carrying the 
words of men into ten million telephones and telegraph receivers ; without 
copper for conducting the electricity of this globe it would be lame and 
halt. The great modem city, and indeed civilization, would be as impos- 
sible without copper as it would be without iron and coal. The whole 
electrical industry of the last thirty years could never have come into exist- 
ence. The United States produces more copper in a year than all the 
balance of the world. Europe depends largely upon America, including 
Mexico and Alaska, to furnish the world with the wires of the electric 
lights, telephone and telegraphs. Our production was 600,000 tons in 
1914. We might symbolize this great quantity of copper by stretching it 
into a wire and girdling the earth ten times with it — a 250,000 mile 
wire. 

Man has come nearer to the center of the earth in copper mining in 
Michigan than anywhere else. Here a copper mine shaft penetrates more 
than 5,000 feet and is the doorway to a vast subterranean city having more 
than 200 miles of streets, which are lighted by electricity. Electrically 
propelled cars and elevators carry the "citizens" of this city under ground, 
while electric and compressed air drills carry on their industry. What is 
being done in Michigan is true of many of our Western States, notably 
Montana and Arizona, though the mines in the latter regions are not quite 
so deep as these ancient Lake Superior mines. It was this district which 
lured the first French explorers from Quebec, when America was being 
settled. 

There are more than 80,000 copper miners and smelters in the United 
States, and we are producing more than 1,000,000,000 pounds of copper 
every year. We get nearly a third of this from the Arizona mines, with 
the Montana mines standing second. Altogether, the copper mines of the 

336 



1 



GREAT AMERICAN MINES 

United States yield more than half of the world's total supply. These 
mines are producing every twenty-four hours more copper than was mined 
in a twelve month just prior to the American Civil War. 

The Bessemer process has revolutionized the copper industry. Hours 
have become minutes, so to speak. To-day copper ore fed into a furnace 
in the morning can be shipped as 99 per cent, pure metal by evening. 
The old-time methods required about four days. The old-time roasting 
stalls and furnaces, covering many acres, have shrunken to a Bessemer fur- 
nace and converter covering a plot about twenty-five by one hundred feet 
and capable of producing 1,000,000 pounds of copper a month. By the 
old methods, one ton of ore required a full day's labor; by the new processes 
one day's labor reduces four tons of ore to fine metal. 

We now come to oil. In America, petroleum is written as one of 
the great industrial dramas of the world. American petroleum has the 
fire of passion in it, and it has done more to impress the power of the 
United States than all our industries put together. It created the idea 
of the great American corporations and it has been classified with the 
Napoleonic government in its centralized power. It was a one-man genius, 
a one-man government, and a one-man power, and by its efficiency America 
has long been the world's oil king. The oil output in the United States 
was 10,500,000,000 gallons in 1914. That is enough to float a half a 
dozen of the largest superdreadnoughts in any navy. If all that oil were 
put into one lamp burning a thousand candle power it would last till 
Doomsday. 

The oil industry of this country is supplied from more than a thou- 
sand wells and reservoirs in Pennsylvania, the Mississippi Valley, and 
Texas. Twenty-five thousand miles of pipe line convey the output to 
the great refineries. At these refineries more than 4,000,000 barrels are 
manufactured annually and some 40,000 oil cars are shipped daily. An 
army of employees are engaged in this business and $1,800,000,000 is the 
value of the refined product. Laden oil-trains rush across the continent, 
with their long trains of cars. Steamships ride the waves, with their tanks 
full, to answer the call of China and Japan and far-away New Zealand 
for their supply of American oil. 

The first to tell of the oil in America was Sir Walter Raleigh, in 
1595. It became legendary that the New World was rich in oil. A 
well at Barkeville, Kentucky, yielded such great quantities of oil in 1820 
that on one occasion it overflowed to the Cumberland River and seemed 
to "set the river on fire." It was not until 1853 that an American sug- 
gested the idea of using oil to light our homes. Far-seeing men saw in 
this idea a royal road to fortune. The first oil company was formed and 

33T 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

failed. The first man to be successful in mining the mineral was E. L. 
Drake, who came upon it through an accident. A couple of workmen were 
drilling at Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of August, 1859; they 
suddenly felt their tools drop into an underground cavern, sixty-nine feet 
down. The following day oil was "struck." This was the beginning of 
our modem oil industry. The first means of transporting Pennsylvania 
oil was by storing it in wooden casks and floating them down the Alle- 
gheny River. Later, four miles of pipe line were laid by Samuel Van 
Sykle at Titusville, Pennsylvania, 

When the crude oil is first taken out of the ground, it is offensive 
to the smell and varied of color. It is then distilled at the depots from 
which it had been conveyed from the wells. Fraction by fraction, the 
mighty stores in the great wooden-shaped reservoirs are purified. From 
this crude oil we obtain our benzine and naphtha, which are used by freez- 
ing machines and all kinds of motors; our kerosene for light, lubricating 
oil for machinery, and vaseline for medical purposes. 

The value of oil to humanity can only be estimated by its multitude 
of uses. Enough oil has been taken out of the bowels of the earth, right 
here in the United States, to form a tank line around the globe — not once 
but a hundred times. If all the barrels of oil taken from our American 
soil could be lined up together, it would take five hundred cities the size 
of Manhattan Island (New York) to hold them. It would keep a light 
burning in the Statue of Liberty for billions of years. Over 265,000,000 
barrels of petroleum (forty-two gallons each) are produced annually in 
the world. The United States leads with about 167,000,000 barrels a 
year. No novelist has ever lived whose imagination was so fertile as 
to prophecy even in fiction the growth of this industry, which is but a 
little over a half century old. The plain story of oil becomes more won- 
derful with every passing year, as it brings its report of new fields and 
new springs exporting their millions of gallons of oil into the vast store- 
houses of man. Lastly it has created colossal fortunes and has made John 
D. Rockefeller the richest man in the world. 

The lure of civilization is gold. It lured Hercules into the dragon- 
guarded garden of the Hesperides; Jason and the Argonauts to the shores 
of the Black Sea; the Phoenicians into Spain; the Romans into Britain. 
Columbus braved the perils of an unknown sea for it; Cortez and Pizarro 
conquered Mexico and Peru in its name ; Britons traveled to the Far South 
in Africa to capture it; pioneers overran California in search of it; Amer- 
icans traveled to the Frozen North to find it. It has been the tocsin 
which has gathered greater armies than any battle-cry ever uttered. It 
has steeled brave hearts to the discovery of new worlds, and it has strength- 

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ened brave spirits into populating those worlds with marvelous cities and 
empires. 

This is the age of gold. We find it in myriad forms. Authorities 
have estimated that about one-sixth of the gold mined enters into the arts 
and industries, the balance being divided up into gold and bullion. 
Billions of dollars' worth of gold have been lost. It is one of the mys- 
teries of the ages where it has gone. 

From the discovery of America to the year 1911, $14,308,237,000 
worth of gold had been wrested from the earth's treasure haunts. Pure 
gold of that value would weigh about 23,725 tons. If it could all be 
gathered and formed into a pillar twenty feet in diameter, the top would 
reach within about twenty-five feet of the crown on the Statue of Lib- 
erty. Our National Treasury is a veritable gold mine itself. There is 
a fortune greater than King Solomon took out of his mines in Ophir. 
Twelve hundred tons of the precious metal are stored there and in the 
Sub-Treasury in New York's financial district in bags. 

Gold and silver have always fought for supremacy in the money 
marts. From ancient times until the Seventh Century, both gold and silver 
were standard. Then silver assumed the ascendancy until about the thir- 
teenth century, when gold again stood beside silver, and both metals be- 
came standard. During the period immediately following the American 
War for Independence, gold forged ahead and became the standard all 
over the world. 

The consequent demand for gold brought on a crisis. The world was 
in the grip of a gold famine. The golden hoards of the Incas and Monte- 
zuma had dwindled into a comparatively small stream. The Bank of 
England was rocking on its foundations, having more than once suspended 
specie payments. Eminent economists were predicting another "Fall of 
the Roman Empire." Then, like Moses in the desert, gold-seekers in Cal- 
ifornia and in Australia magically touched the golden rocks, and, like two 
reservoirs bursting through their dams, two floods of gold poured out over 
the world. Its dazzling sheen changed the whole face of industry, altered 
the course of commxcrce, shifted masses of people, and reversed the move- 
ment of prices. 

It was the dawn of the ''Golden Age," which to-day holds us in Its 
thrall. The world has never witnessed such a rush as followed the dis- 
covery of gold in California in 1848. The modern Argonauts were known 
as the American "Forty-niner." San Francisco was emptied of Its adult 
population, and these gold-seekers were joined by others from all parts 
of the world. Two years after James Wilson Marshall found his epochal 
nugget in John Sutter's mill-race along the Sacramento River, there were 

341 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

100,000 men gathered on the gold-fields, which ranged for six hundred 
miles and covered eight million acres. They took out $50,000,000 in that 
year with crude pans and cradle rockers, and five years later exceeded that 
sum by $15,000,000. 

What they did then is being done to-day, and more, for in a year 
California produced over $19,000,000 worth of gold and still leads all 
other American gold fields, even Alaska and Colorado, the El Dorados of 
the later generations. The modern miner has revolutionized gold mining. 
He delves into mountain sides with his electric and compressed air drills, 
often penetrating for thousands of feet. In some places the modern 
miner squirts immense and powerful streams of water against a hill-side, 
like firemen subduing the flames. This is the hydraulic method of min- 
ing, which washes away the gravel and dirt and exposes the gold. In 
another district gold is mined just as the coal is. Deep shafts lead into 
the bowels of the earth, and from these there are tunnels branching out. 
Huge timbers brace the walls and roofs, and the miners drill holes in 
the walls with electric and compressed air drills. Their ore is carried to 
the shaft opening in motor cars and thence up the shaft in buckets or 
"skips." This is what they called "quartz" mining. Then the ore is 
taken to the stamp mills to be crushed into a fine powder, after v/hich it 
is treated with acids and electric currents, put through wonderful ma- 
chinery, until it comes out in the form of bullion, ready to be shipped to 
the mints. 

If gold is the autocrat of precious metals, silver is the democrat. 
For every ounce of gold in the world to-day, there are nineteen of sil- 
ver. From the day that Columbus first landed in the New World to the 
day that China became a republic, enough silver had been mined through- 
out the world to make 2,488 four-cylinder compound locomotives or more 
than 300,000 tons of metal. If this had been sold on the market at pres- 
ent day commercial valuations, it would have brought about four billion 
dollars. Its coinage value would have been more than fourteen billion 
dollars, or enough to pay the funded debts of Italy, Japan, the Nether- 
lands, and Mexico. 

But silver is accepted in circles where gold, because of its greater 
value, cannot enter. It is in nearly every American home. What family 
is there to-day without its silver knives, forks, and spoons, its silver 
brushes, combs and hand-mirrors'? In the art of photography, it faithfully 
paints exact images upon printing paper. It performs feats of magic in 
medicine, in association with other chemicals. It is one of the surgeon's 
best friends. When the human arteries and like organs break down, it re- 
places them and carries on their functions quite as well as the human tis- 

343 



GREAT AMERICAN MINES 

sue. And it will carry the electric spark further and more easily than any 
other known metal. 

Mexico produces the most silver, with our United States crowding 
it close for the honors. Our production is increasing and we will soon lead 
the world. American continents, North and South, supply nearly five- 
sixths of the world's silver. Before the discovery of America, silver was 
as scarce as gold. But when the silver floodgates of the New World were 
opened, it became so abundant that its value deteriorated, until to-day six- 
teen ounces of silver is considered equal in value to one ounce of gold. It 
costs as much to produce sixteen ounces of chemically pure silver as it 
does one ounce of gold. 

To transport the silver mined every twelvemonth in the United States 
would require a train of nearly two hundred freight cars, and the ship- 
ment would weigh about 6,300 tons; about 110 of them are destined for 
the silver and other industrial shops in our country; the balance is dis- 
tributed among the mints and the seaports for shipment to foreign lands. 

A decade after the California gold rush, the world was again startled 
by the discovery of another El Dorado, this time in Nevada and con- 
sisting largely of silver. Its name, the Comstock Lode, was a household 
word for many years. It was almost a pure vein, about four miles long 
and three thousand feet at its widest point. From the day of its dis- 
covery until the year 1890, a period of thirty years, it produced about 
$200,000,000 worth of silver, and about $140,000,000 worth of gold. 
Nevada had again assumed the leadership in the production of silver in 
our country, with Montana and Utah close seconds. These three States 
produce nearly a third of our total supply. Out in these Western moun- 
tains sturdy American miners are forcing the earth to yield up its precious 
metals. 

The startling phenomenon of mysterious gas bursting like a pillar of 
fire from the ground was first witnessed in the United States in 1821, by 
the villagers of Fredonia, New York, but the occurrence passed without 
further agitation — it was the discovery of natural gas. Thirty-eight years 
later, in 1859, the presence of gas was detected in great quantities in Penn- 
sylvania. Little was known of its value, however, so, to prevent com- 
bustion of the oil, the natural gas was conveyed to a safe distance and 
burned as a nuisance. 

The great awakening to the usefulness of this "dangerous vapor" 
came in 1872 when it was conquered by the genius of man in Pennsylvania 
and forced to go to work for him. It was found that imprisoned in the 
great stone caverns of the earth are millions upon millions of gallons of 
petroleum. This oil throws off powerful gases, which, when released, are 

343 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

forced by compression through the porous rock to chambers in the earth. 
A drill, mounted on a beam about seventy feet high and twenty feet at 
the wooden hose, is used to puncture the gas vein. The natural gas rushes 
to freedom with an average pressure of two hundred to six hundred pounds 
to the square inch. There was recently a case in Pennsylvania where the 
recorded pressure was eight hundred to one thousand pounds. The gas 
is then conserved in a tank and directed into iron pipes. Meters measure 
the gas and it is conveyed in all directions to light the homes and to 
generate heat and power in the factories. 

This gas is in quantities in the earth beyond all human dreams. 
There are yet new regions to be found; new fields to be explored. Day 
after day the storehouses of the earth are giving up new supplies. An 
idea of its enormity can only be judged by the waste which occurs in the 
United States alone by accidentally puncturing gas veins and allowing 
the vapor to escape. A million cubic feet of natural gas is escaping every 
day in Oklahoma. The value of this for a single year is $7,500,000. 
The fuel value of it is equal to 1,250,000 tons of the best bituminous 
coal. The waste is still more deplorable in Louisiana, where the means 
of heat are wasted in the air and the people are paying for coal which 
must be brought from a distance. The wastes in but three States made 
a grand total of $23,000,000 worth of natural gas lost forever. 

No one can estimate the possibilities of natural gas. They are be- 
yond calculation. Millions of homes will no doubt be lighted in the fu- 
ture through this medium of nature's hot breath; thousands of factories 
will be run with the power it creates. Electricity will probably rely upon 
it for its generation. The entire machinery of the country may be con- 
trolled by its supply. The miracle of fire leaping from the ground has 
come as a new evidence of the incalculable riches that remain hidden in the 
heart of the earth. 

These visits to the riches of the vast subterranean world that lies be- 
neath the American continent, the foundation upon which the American 
nation has been built, might be continued for a long period. There are 
many metals that we have not even mentioned, but this is sufiicient to 
impress us with the main point — the indisputable claim that American 
civilization is on substantial ground, that it is not merely a creation of 
genius, but a geological fact — a product of nature. 



3M 



1 




%W^ I ,*riW I W 11 If ^ ^ - 




RANCHES IN AMERICA — We have more than 21.000,000 horses, valued at $2,500,000,000 — The 

cowboys of the Great West tend the herds on these ranches — The sheep ranches 

produce the wool for the American people. 



PART rv CHAPTER X 

GREAT AMERICAN AGRICULTURE 



"The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use 
of land." —Emerson. 



AGRICULTURE is the first of man's achievements — it was his 
first discovery in the science of human existence. There has 
never been a great people without a great agriculture; all real 
values, say the economists, are land values. The first of all 
modern commercial nations must be built on the foundation of its green 
fields — it comes from the earth; there is its sustenance. The one thing 
that threatens the supremacy of a nation is when its cities and commerce 
have outgrown its fields and agriculture resources — that is the first step to- 
ward national starvation. 

America has come into the family of nations, endowed with an agri- 
cultural heritage, the richest in the world. Its rich soil spans more than 
thirty degrees of latitude and forty degrees of longitude, reaching from 
the fruits of the semi-tropics to the grains of the North. This gives to 
the nation an imperishable physical foundation. America's greatness and 
power was born out of an agriculture that promises never to slacken its 
pace with the growth of the nation. We are the only nation that can now 
live absolutely on our own soil. 

The first item of the nation's wealth are the farms of the country. 
There are over 600,000 farms, more farms than in the Russian Empire, 
which is over twice the area of the United States. These farms are valued 
at more than $40,000,000,000. Some of them are the largest farms in 
the world. In Kansas there is a farm of more than twenty-five thousand 
acres, and the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Texas have a number of farms 
exceeding ten thousand acres. 

The American farms, exclusively of their stock and everything but the 
buildings, are worth more than the entire Russian Empire with its over 
7,000,000 square miles, its railroads, its mines, its great cities. On these 
farms there are nearly $3,000,000,000 worth of farm animals including 
their yield of products. There are more than 56,000,000 cattle, over 
20,000,000 horses; 50,000,000 sheep; more than 4,000,000 mules; more 
than 58,000,000 swine. These animals all told are more than 190,- 
000,000 in number. The milch cows produced 983,000,000 pounds of 
butter last year, not to calculate the gallons of milk. The horses of 

847 



\ 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

the country are equal in power to all the power of our steam and water 
machinery. These huge animal figures do not include the poultry, which 
is a big item in the nation's wealth. The great American hen lays 5,000,- 
000,000 eggs, or five dozen eggs for each inhabitant of the country. It 
must have required 100,000,000 hens to lay all these eggs. The dairy 
products of the United States exceeded $350,000,000 in value. Of these 
animals, over 20,000,000 cattle, sheep and hogs are annually slaughtered 
for meat — more than any four countries in Europe produce. Our meat 
and poultry production together exceeds that of England, France, Ger- 
many, and Italy. 

Agriculture, beginning with the days of the first settlements, was the 
chief occupation of the American people. Not only of the whole nation, 
but especially of the American born. The census reports show that of all 
the native born, exactly one-half were engaged in agricultural pursuits. 
The foreign born on the contrary are attracted more largely by mills, 
factories and mines. The only nationality that approaches the natives in 
the proportion of agriculturists which they give to the nation, is the 
Scandinavian, 50 per cent, of whose members till the soil. 

American agriculture presents certain peculiarities which deserve at- 
tention. The tendency has been to concentrate all efforts on certain great 
staples: wheat, corn and cereals in the North; cotton, rice and sugar in 
the South. In the production of those commodities a tremendous advance 
has been made and extraordinary results obtained. This was due mainly 
to the industrial genius of the men who developed the soil of this land. 
American agriculture (like American railways) has been marked by its 
adaptation to the peculiar needs and conditions of the country. It has been 
not intensive but extensive. Like the railroad, it has spread thinly over 
immense spaces, instead of concentrating its efforts on small patches of land. 
Foreign writers several decades ago often mentioned the slipshod methods 
of the American farmer, the meagerness of the crops, the waste of manure, 
the failure to rotate crops, etc. But the American farmer was only adopt- 
ing the methods which were the most advantageous for a community having 
an abundance of land and not obliged to confine its operations to a small 
number of acres. The important thing for a farmer was not how much 
he could get out of a certain acreage but how much he could get out of a 
certain am.ount of labor. 

Land being cheap, it was more profitable to raise ten bushels of wheat 

per acre on 50 acres than 25 bushels to the acre on 10 acres. Conditions 

.changed slowly, however, as the population became larger, and the soil 

was becoming exhausted. The transition from extensive to intensive 

farming has accomplished itself almost completely in New England, New 

848 



GREAT AMERICAN AGRICULTURE 

York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. It has just begun in the Mississippi Val- 
ley. In the Far West, on the other hand, the practical methods of the 
first settlers will still obtain for some time yet. 

The abundance of the soil was not the only factor that determined 
the enormous development of American agriculture. A factor quite as im- 
portant was the extensive use of machinery. There is no branch of in- 
dustry in which the ingenuity and enterprise of the American nation have 
been so strikingly manifested as in the invention of agricultural implements. 
Mowers, reapers, binders, plows, cultivators, harrows and an endless variety 
of other mechanical tools have revolutionized agriculture in this country 
and will gradually revolutionize it the world over. It has been calculated 
that the amount of human labor now required to produce a bushel of wheat 
is only ten minutes, while it required three hours fifty years ago. The ease 
with which large pieces of land on the Western prairie could be acquired 
and placed under one single management has led to the creation of farms 
the like of which the Old World had never known. And on those farms 
as a rule only one single staple is produced. This high tide record in 
farming is due to an abundance of land and a preponderant population on 
the land to begin with, and now to the application of science to the soil in 
all the older settlements of the United States. 

The progressive American agriculturist of to-day must have as liberal 
an education as any worker in the nation. He must be an agricultural 
chemist, an engineer and mechanic, a bacteriologist. He must understand 
eugenics as they apply to his stock, rural economics, horticulture, soil, 
physics, agronomy and thremmatology. That last is the science of breed- 
ing new kinds of plants, as well as animals. 

The ancients practiced and appreciated agriculture, or husbandry, as 
they liked to call the science. It was Cicero who made Cato say: "The 
home of a good and industrious husbandman is stored with wealth, and 
nothing can be more beautiful, nothing more profitable than a well culti- 
vated farm." Wherever one goes throughout our nation, one will find 
flourishing farm lands circling round cities and towns. There one will see 
great fields of growing grain, heavily burdened orchards of fruit, trim and 
scientifically arranged farm buildings; modern suburban homes lighted by 
electricity (as are the farm buildings), heated by modern methods, 
equipped with the latest house-keeping devices, connected with neighbors 
and cities by telephone wires, which also radiate throughout the whole 
farm, connecting the owner with all points of his field of operations. One 
may meet the farmer and his wife and children speeding along macadam- 
ized highways in high-power automobiles, the children destined for a mod- 
ernly equipped school where they study the science of agriculture as well 

349 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

as the studies of the city-student, the wife probably making her social calls 
while the farmer continues onward to sell his crops in the city. 

This is the day of scientific farming. On the model farm one worker 
may be putting blue litmus paper into the ground to find out if the soil 
is sour; or another may be knocking half the apples from the trees, so 
that the remaining fruit will be of better quality. In the cow barn an- 
other may be spreading raw phosphate to be put in the soil to assist the 
plants and grains to grow. Out in a field a worker is spreading a coating 
of soil, brought from another field, to inoculate the poorer soil with bacteria 
and help the legumes to flourish. That thundering noise heard is the 
dynamite exploding or subsoiling the earth so that the roots of the crops 
can penetrate farther into the earth and get nourishment that otherwise 
would be forever cut off from it. 

These arc a few of the scientific methods which have enabled the 
modern farmer to perform that miracle of "making two" blades of grass 
grow v/here one grev/ before." Turn to the reports of the Agricultural 
Department, that wonderful institution which is spreading its knowledge 
and beneficence among the farmers, and find out what the actual results 
have been during the last decade. They relate that the yield of corn per 
acre all over the country has gained on the average more than seven per 
cent, and wheat over nine per cent. There are many more items, but these 
will illustrate what scientific methods mean. These figures are for only 
one decade, and the preceding decades shows a proportionate increase, ever 
since the close of the American Civil War when agriculture began to receive 
the attention of scientists. Since that time, the bushels to an acre of some 
staples have increased from thirty to sixty. 

The farmer is almost the only inventor who does not keep his discov- 
eries for profit to himself alone. Owing to this fact the world is able 
to test its cows' milk productivity through Babcock's testing machine; is 
able to grow the naval orange which William Saunders brought into the 
country and the Wealthy apple, said to be the best of apple seedlings, 
which cost Peter Gideon of Minnesota his last $5 for seeds (even while he 
had to make a coat out of a pair of trousers and a vest) ; or the wonderful 
Minnesota experiment station, which to-day has added 15 per cent, to 
the wheat crop in a decade. It was Wendclin Grimm who gave alfalfa 
to America after having brought it from his native home in Bavaria ten 
years before the Civil War broke out. The Alabaman, James F. Duggar, 
was the discoverer of the modern method of inoculating soils, and he pub- 
lished his conclusions in bulletins which were so well distributed through- 
out the land that there is scarcely any modern American farmer who does 

350 




r.ANAXA I'LANTATIOX IN FLORIDA. 







~ KKT M*.J ^. - T-V *' 











^ ) \ 


ll^^^^ 


L. y'^^:--^'V 


^^- 


^ "^ ",^ 



PEACH ORCHARD IN COLORADO. 



I.IO.MON GROVES 




1 ' \ 1 IN I M II UK. MA. 



FRUIT rRODTTCTION IN AMKRir.V — The wealth of the orchards in the Uniterl States gives an 

annual production exceedlns ii;i.'00,000.000 each year — Tliis tremendous fortune is but one 

of the lesser elements in the agricultural wealth of the United States. 




TOIiArCO I'LANTATIUXS IN AMERICA — Tobacco was unknown to the civilized world before 

discovery of America — It Wcas first found in Mexico in 1558 — The United States is 

producins more than a billion pounds a year, valued at about !);ii;5,0(iu.(>()0. 




SUGAR PLANTATIONS IN AMERK^A — Sugar cane was brought into Louisiana by the Jesuits m 

1751 — The Americans were the first to refine sugar in 1792 — The United 

States now produces over 20,000,000 tons a year. 




AMERICAN FRUITS IN HAWAII — Pineapple plantations — ^The pineapple is a native of the 

American tropics, I)ut has boon introduced into warm climates throughout the world : 

West Indies, Florida, Northern Africa, Hawaii and Azores Islands. 




(ji'REAT F0KE8TS OF AMERICA — The United States possesses 700,000,000 acres of forest — 
Millions of acres have been devastated to secure lumber to build the nation — The govern- 
ment has now entered upon a conservative policy to preserve its forest resources. 



GREAT AMERICAN AGRICULTURE 

not understand how to transfer good soil to poor. The names of these 
benefactors to the farmer and the nation are legion. 

One of the greatest benefactors is the Government itself, through the 
Department of Agriculture. In a recent year its directing official figured 
what the Department had actually accomplished, in dollars and cents, 
for the country. It reached the tremendous figure of $231,859,000, count- 
ing only those larger items which could be estimated, and they ranged 
through all branches of agriculture. 

It was estimated that for frost, cold wave and river-rising warnings, 
the Weather Bureau saved the country $25,000,000. The Bureau of 
Soils, which shows the adaptation of soils to crops, methods of handling 
soils, and studying the alkali problems, totaled about $9,000,000. The 
money spent for the destruction of farm pests, coyotes, wolves, and 
other animals which endanger crops, and also for encouraging certain 
birds of value, is conservatively estimated by the Bureau of Biology at 
$3,000,000. For introducing the Australian ladybird to eat the San Jose 
scale, not to mention the work on the black scale, cotton insects, includ- 
ing the boll weevil, and the insects which prey on general crops, the Bureau 
of Entomology required $5,000,000. The Bureau of Plant Industry 
claimed $29,000,000, mentioning as its largest item the introduction of 
Durum wheat. The largest bureau is that of animal industry, and it 
claimed over $50,000,000, distributing its claims through tick eradication, 
subduing pleuro-pneumonia, dairy investigations, new treatment of milk 
fever, dipping sheep for scabies, inspecting cattle-ships, and inspecting 
meat. Then there is the Good Roads Office, which aids in the building 
of new and repairs old roads throughout the rural districts, and the Forest 
Service for maintaining forest reserves, thus preserving stream flow and 
indirectly bringing the rain in needed seasons. 

The agricultural experiment stations are the outposts, or scouts, of 
the Agricultural Department. There are about sixty in the United States, 
located in every State and Territory, and they are units of the Agricultural 
Colleges which are establishing scientific American agriculture. Michigan 
claims the honor of first establishing an agricultural school, providing for 
one in 1850, making it a part of her second State constitution. Seven 
years later, Justin S. Morrill, the Father of American Agricultural Col- 
leges, introduced a bill to the House of Representatives to endow the Land 
Grant Colleges which Congress had established. Connecticut claims the 
first experiment station, opening one at Middletown to be conducted along 
modern lines, later moving it to New Haven. 

It is these stations that reduce scientific agriculture from theory to 

355 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

practice. The results of the experiments are published in bulletins and 
sent to the farmer. They will test the soils submitted and advise the 
farmer the best crops to grow, or how to increase the fertility of the soil 
so as to increase the yield per acre. What is true of soil is also true 
of any part of a farm or its products. When a new plant suitable for 
growth in America is found in any distant clime — and the Department 
of Agriculture maintains a large corps of expert agriculturists to comb the 
earth for these plants — it is first tried out in experiments and if practical 
the infonnation is sent broadcast. We mention just one instance to illus- 
trate what this service means. A man sends word to the department that 
his land, bordering the overflown banks of the Great Lakes, is too wet 
to grow anything. Back to him comes a package of taros, or yautias, or 
dasheens, and probably all three, with instructions on how to plant and 
raise them, with the further assurance that they will not only thrive in the 
wettest soil and are more edible than the sweet potato, but that starch, 
flour, alcohol, and a few other things as well can be made from these arti- 
cles which one of the department scouts found in the interior of Africa. 

The agricultural resources of the United States are bound to increase 
continually as intensive cultivation takes the place of extensive cultiva- 
tion. Furthermore, to the arable lands now at the disposal of agricultur- 
ists, irrigation is constantly adding new fertile tracks. Until 1902, all 
the irrigation work had been done by private parties. The Reclamation 
Act provides for irrigation works built by the Government, which repays 
itself for expenses incurred out of the sale of land and water rights. 
Up to 1910, some 15,000,000 acres of land had been reclaimed in that 
way in the arid Western States. This system has proved very profitable, 
for the receipts up to 1910 had been larger by $15,000,000 than the expen- 
ditures. Irrigation has enabled many men with slim resources to settle on 
cheap but fertile tracks of land in the West, and the number of small farms 
has increased considerably in recent years. It is estimated that there are 
brought under cultivation 1,000 new farms every year in the Western 
States, compensating the steady abandonment of farm lands in the East, 
particularly in New England and New York State. 

America grows more corn than all the other countries of the world 
and it has therefore been called Corn King of the world. This year it 
is estimated by the Agricultural Department that the crop will be 3,000,- 
000,000 bushels. Last year it was 2,500,000,000 bushels in round num- 
bers. This gigantic production of corn has made it possible to raise all 
these valuable animals and poultry on the farms and it has made America 
the world's meat market as a consequence. 

To give an idea of this, the greatest cereal crop in the world, let 

356 



GREAT AMERICAN AGRICULTURE 

us suppose that the crop reaches only 2,750,000,000, a very conservative 
estimate. If this corn were loaded in cars of 1,000 bushels, it would re- 
quire 2,500,000 cars and 85,333 locomotives carrying thirty cars each to 
carry this enormous crop. All the locomotives and grain and box cars in 
the United States and Europe could not carry it on one trip, and if 
stretched out in a straight line, allowing thirty feet for each car and 
space between the end of each car, it would be 17,067 miles in length, 
and would reach from San Francisco to New York, Liverpool, Berlin, 
Constantinople, Bombay, and Hong Kong, China. This immense train 
would girdle the United States twice, beginning at Chicago with a 
double track, thence to New York, Baltimore, Wilmington, Savannah, 
Jacksonville, Fla., Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, Houston, San An- 
tonio, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Helena, 
Montana, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago, the starting point. The 
weight of this enormous corn crop would be 143,360,000,000 pounds. If 
corn is worth 75 cents a bushel to-day, this enormous corn crop would be 
worth about $1,700,000,000. This corn crop would be worth as much as 
our great iron and steel industry, or as much as our wheat and cotton crop 
combined. 

The biggest corn farm in the world is located in the State of Missouri. 
This farm contains more than twenty-five thousand acres. More than 
8,000 head of cattle are fed on this farm and nearly 10,000 head of hogs. 
The great corn States are Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, In- 
diana, but corn is cultivated on a large scale in eighteen other States. The 
total production is close to three billion bushels, and the total acreage 
close to 110,000,000 acres. The United States produces three-fourths of 
the world's entire corn crop. Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, 
Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Washington are entirely devoted to the rais- 
ing of winter and spring wheat, the average annual crop being about 750,- 
000,000 bushels on an average area of 47,000,000 acres. 

America grows more wheat than any country except Russia. This 
year it is estimated that the crop will reach 1,000,000,000 bushels. But, 
if it has to take second place in wheat production, it comes up to the top 
again in hay, and forage. The value of the hay crop last year was nearly 
$800,000,000 and exceeded in value all the metals mined in this country 
but pig-iron. Hay is a twin brother to corn in making America the land 
of beef. The hay crop is now 75,000,000 tons, and it would take far more 
cars to haul this hay than the corn crop. 

But America is King Cotton as well as King Corn, Queen Hen, Queen 
Cow and King Grass, to the whole world. It raises over 70 per cent, of the 
world's entire cotton crop. The high water mark of this crop was 14,- 

357. 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

100,000 bales in 1912. At $50 a bale it would amount to $705,000,000. 
But as hay and corn are converted into meat, more than doubling their 
original value, so more than half of the cotton now grown in this country 
is manufactured into products more than quadrupling its original, raw 
value. The great American cotton crop when it has passed from the gins 
through the factories pays to the American people in actual profits the sum 
of at least $2,000,000,000. The cotton States are Texas, Georgia, 
Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, the annual yield being 
on the average of 14,000,000 bales or two thirds of the world's production. 

The cane sugar States are Louisiana and Texas, which produce some 
350,000 tons yearly; the beet sugar States are Colorado, Michigan and 
California. There are about 450,000 tons of sugar extracted from some 
3,500,000 tons of beets. 

The oat crop is generally over a billion bushels a year, and the area 
is close to 35,000,000 acres. The oat States are Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, 
Wisconsin, Nebraska, Ohio, Indiana, the Dakotas, Michigan, and New 
.York, producing each from 1,000,000 to 4,500,000 bushels. 

The rice crop of the United States is approximately 24,000,000 bush- 
els, grown on 750,000 acres. The rice States are Louisiana, Texas, Arkan- 
sas, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and North 
Carolina. The value of the Louisiana crop is on the average $10,000,000 
a year. 

The above facts and figures constitute that which is and must always 
remain the body, the backbone, and spinal cord of the great republic. It 
is these staggering figures that we have dug out of our fields, and housed 
in our barns. and elevators, our mills, smoke houses, and pantries. You 
will no longer wonder that we are the best fed nation on earth, and that 
we are always ready out of our great abundance to pour into the lap of 
charity and put bread into the mouths of the unfortunate and starving 
throughout the earth. 



358 




valued at nearly $:!00.000,000— They produce annually over 300 000 000 
pounds of wool valued at $60,000,000. 



PART IV CHAPTER XI 

GREAT AMERICAN BANKS 

"Private credit is wealth; public honor is security." 

— Junius. 



MONEY is the driving power of the world; it is its physical 
generative force. A nation's ability to accumulate money 
denotes its ability not only to plan and launch enterprises, 
but to make multiplication tables of profit out of its enter- 
prise. No nation can ever grow great without the gift to make money 
honestly and use it with wisdom. America shows that it possesses this 
gift to a pre-eminent degree. It has made and saved more money than 
any other nation, because it has more generative force, more enterprise, 
more inventiveness, and more natural wealth. The following chapter 
shows how America gives the most concrete expression to its great money 
power. 

The banking power of America is now nearly two-fifths of the bank- 
ing power of the entire world. In another decade, at the rate it is increas- 
ing (219 per cent., while the balance of the world is increasing 102 per 
cent.), it will be over half the world's banking power. In 1906 our 
banking power was $16,000,000,000, or greater than the banking power 
of the whole world in 1890. In 1908 it had reached $19,500,000,000; in 
1912, $25,000,000,000, and by the end of 1915 it is estimated that it 
will have reached $28,000,000,000, while the balance of the world will 
have reached only $42,000,000,000. In ten years it has nearly doubled 
itself. There is nothing in our growth and progress as a nation more 
amazing than these enormous figures, this huge aggregation of financial 
power. 

More than any other item in our national wealth does this banking 
power represent the energy, the industrial and commercial vitality of 
the people. It is the industrial and commercial blood of the nation in 
circulation and it circulates with a power and pressure unknown in all 
the past. Here is a people grouped under one nation and representing 
only one-sixteenth of the human race, with two-fifths of the whole race's 
capacity to circulate among themselves and into the outer world their 
financial and commercial power. Nine-tenths of this great power is con- 
fined to the carrying on of domestic trade and transactions at home. Eng- 
land and Germany each has had a much larger foreign trade than has 

361 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

America, but the domestic trade of both of them combined does not begin 
to compare with that of the United States. No people in the world buy 
from and sell to one another such prodigious quantities of merchandise, 
deal in such enormous real estate values, and project such gigantic financial 
enterprises among themselves as the American people, and without their 
great banking power they could not do this. This banking power, as ex- 
pressed in figures, is the red letter index to our great volume of industrial 
and commercial transaction. 

This is not, however, an index to the whole story, for there are 
many comparatively small transactions and trades daily in which banks do 
not figure. There are now $3,000,000,000 in the pockets of the people 
outside of banks, yet every bill of money and coin bears on its face a 
part of the country's banking power. 

There were at the beginning of 1915, 28,746 banks. Of these 7,581 
were national banks, with $11,357,086,017 resources. Bank resources are 
such items as loans, bank deposits, not individual, cash on hand, secur- 
ties, etc. There were 1,978 savings banks with $4,513,427,930; 14,011 
State banks with $4,143,052,802 resources; 1,515 loan and trust com- 
panies with $5,123,920,197 resources, and 1,016 private banks having 
$183,765,398. 

The national banks and the State banks and trust companies have been 
organized and welded into a great national banking system under the 
Federal Reserve Banking Act. Out of six per cent, of the capital of all 
these banks have been created twelve Federal District Reserve Banks with 
a capital of $225,000,000, which in reality is a great central bank. As 
the banking power of the American people grows this great central bank 
located in twelve representative financial centers will grow accordingly. 
It will in time become the greatest financial institution in the world, sur- 
passing the Bank of England. It serves the banks and the business of 
the country just as the heart serves the human body. It regulates the 
circulation of money by making the great banking power of the United 
States react readily to every need and demand of industry and trade. It 
breaks up an overflow of money in New York and carries to the little 
country towns of the agricultural West and South the cash to move crop. 
Wherever there is the slightest indication of a panic, it is immediately 
on the spot with a huge bag of gold to reassure the timid. No less a 
financial authority than the late Senator Aldrich said that if the United 
States had had such a bank, the people could have prevented all their 
terrific panics, which is equivalent to saying that there will be no panics 
hereafter. "We have forever scotched the snake of panic," declares Sec- 
retary of the Treasury McAdoo. If we have, the banking power of Amer- 

362 



GREAT AMERICAN BANKS 

ica has been increased a hundred fold, for America in its unrivaled progress 
and sudden swift changes has long been a land of tempestuous money 
panics at too frequent intervals. 

There is now no great institution in the country more secure than 
our national banks. The failure of a national bank now is almost un- 
heard of. To-day our national banking system is even more honest than 
the highly reputed banks of China. And the State banks and trust com- 
panies are not less so. Our banking system has become a pillar of financial 
honesty. An honest bank makes trade honest. There is no more essential 
element in the growth of America's great banking power than this honesty. 

Most, if not all the State banks joining the Federal Reserve System 
are becoming national banks ; so, too, will the trust companies, and within 
a short period our whole banking system is likely to become national in 
substance and scope, even including our savings banks. Every bank will 
then have the power of the nation behind it. The adoption of postal 
savings banks, which are as yet too restrained in their capacities in receiv- 
ing deposits, is in the direction of nationalizing the country's great bank- 
ing power. A bank will be like the dollar that it holds. It will have 
the stamp of the nation on it. Private banks are on the decline and must 
go, for no bank can live in a highly organized commercial nation unless 
it is the symbol of the security and power of the Government. 

There is now in the United States a bank to every 3,400 persons or 
to every 680 families. In the New England States there is a bank to 
every 6,1 17 persons; in the Eastern States, including New York and Penn- 
sylvania, there is a bank to every 7,618 persons; in the South a bank to 
every 4,567; in the Middle West, a bank to every 3,206 persons; in the 
Western or Rocky Mountain States a bank to every 1,564; in the Pacific 
States, a bank to every 3,466, and in the Island Possessions a bank to 
every 39,147 persons. The average bank has about $1,000,000 of assets; 
the average bank in New England, $2,719,000 of assets; the average 
bank in the Eastern States $3,520,000. In the great States of the Mid- 
dle West the average bank has $705,000, or one-fifth as much as in the 
Eastern States and one-fourth as much as In New England. In the Pa- 
cific States the average bank has $919,000. The average bank in the 
South has $378,000 and in the West $227,000, but the West has more 
small banks than the South. Two-thirds of the banking power and money 
of the country are found in the New England and Eastern States with 
Illinois thrown in. Consequently, an individual in the South or West with 
equally good security finds it much harder to borrow money than his more 
fortunate fellow individual who lives in the East. This defect the Fed- 
eral Reserve banks seek to remove. The b^riking power of New York 

363 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

State is, in round numbers, $14,000,000,000, or 17 per cent, of the total 
of all the banks in the country. Of $173,765,528,000 bank clearings for 
the whole country in 1913, New York's share was $98,121,220,000. Lon- 
don, long the commercial capital of the world, has never shown such a rec- 
ord, and indeed this was a high water mark for New York, which 1915 is 
likely to surpass. 

The great problem of our foreign trade especially with the South 
American countries is more one of banks than it is of ships or goods. The 
Latin-Americans trade on long time credits, and their principal security is 
real estate. Only branch American banks established in these countries 
can handle this sort of business with intelligence and safety. American 
banks have at last begun to meet this problem by establishing branch banl« 
in centers like Rio Janeiro and Buenos Aires. Thus the great banking 
power has begun to invade the world. 

The most interesting human feature of the banks of the United States 
are the individual depositors and their desposits. It should be borne in 
mind that while these deposits are not banking resources they constitute 
banking power but not the technical power of the banks described above. 
They are one of the principal liabilities of banks and the power of the 
people to make use of banks. The great bulk of these deposits in the 
national banks are subject to check and are not really savings, but they give 
a definite focus on the ever driving energy and enterprise of the nation. 
These individual deposits in the national banks represent about one-half 
of all the deposits in the other banks, and in 1912 they amounted to $5,- 
025,000,000 against $11,198,000,000 held by all the other banks. In 
1914, these deposits had increased in round numbers to $6,000,000,000. 
In 1865, the national banks had only $500,000,000. In 1885, they had 
$1,111,000,000, $1,720,000,000 in 1892, $3,111,000,000 in 1902. 
From 1902 to 1914 they had nearly doubled, which shows that individuals 
are doing twice as much business with their banks as they did twelve 
years ago. 

It is the record of the savings banks deposits to which the political 
economist turns to reckon the thrift of the people. In the great industrial 
centers they are the true gauge of this thrift. John Stuart Mill, the 
high priest of political economy, frequently said that the most precious 
possession a people can have, was what he styled "the effective desire or 
instinct of accumulation." On the other hand, in the great agricultural 
communities the savings bank is not a vault under lock and key, but it con- 
sists of broad acres. In the $41,000,000,000 of farms in this country are 
deposited most of the savings of the 600,000 fanners and their families. 
There were in round numbers $5,000,000,000 of deposits in the 

364. 




TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES — The amount of money in circulation in the United 
States exceeds $4,000,000,000 — The total wealth exceeds $150,000,000,000 — The 
administration of government costs more than $1,000,000,000 a year. 




GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS AT NATIONAL CAPITAL — This magnificent structure is occupied 

by the State Department, the War Department, and the Navy Department — 

It is here that our international relations are conducted. 




FAMOUS UNIVERSITY IN AMERICA— Library at Columbia University— The University was 

founded before the American nation as King's College, under Charter granted 
■* by George II in 1754 — It has nearly Il',000 students. 




LARGEST FREE FUBLIC LIBRARY IN THE \yORLD— This magnificent structure is the New York 
) Public Library — It is built of Vermont marble, Avith a capacity of about 

2,500,000 volumes. It seats nearly 2,000 readers. 



GREAT AMERICAN BANKS 

savings banks, the money of 10,400,000 depositors, in 1914. For the last 
five years this army of depositors has been recruited on an average of 225,- 
000 new depositors every year. Some of these depositors have, of course, 
a deposit to their credit in the country's savings banks, but the number of 
depositors is growing faster in proportion than the population. 

The distribution of these depositors over the country and the growth 
and average amount of the deposits of each from time to time, as com- 
pared with similar savings bank records in foreign countries, show that, al- 
though America is considered by foreigners the most extravagant of na- 
tions, it is really one of the most thrifty of nations. If the total amount 
deposited in our savings banks had been equally distributed among the 
population of the country, the amount to each person in 1820 would have 
been $.12; 1830, $.54; in 1840, $.82; in 1850, $1.87; in i860, $4.75; 
in 1870, $14.75; in 1880, $16.33; in 1890, $24.35; in 1900, $31.78; in 
1910, $45.05. In 1915, it is estimated that there are $50.00 in the sav- 
ings banks to every person in the country. 

The individual deposits in the Pacific States are larger than in the 
New England or Eastern States, but, when we consider the average per 
capita, the opposite is the case. In Massachusetts and Connecticut the 
average per capita amount of deposit is over $250.00, and in none of the 
New England States does it fall below $100. New England and the six 
Eastern States furnish over three-fourths of the total deposits in the sav- 
ings banks of the country. The magnitude of the deposits in these States 
becomes more apparent when we realize that in half of the States of the 
country the per capita deposits are less than $5.00. In the South and West 
farm owners put their earnings in farm improvements and lands. 

France has been proclaimed as the nation of incarnate thrift. In 
1901 the French had in their savings banks only $22.75 P^^ capita, as com- 
pared with $31.78 per capita for the United States, but the French, like 
many Americans, have other ways of saving their money. In 1901 the 
English had in their savings banks $23.14. In Prussian Germany the fig- 
ures were $25.81 ; in Italy $13.66; Austria had $32.00. Poverty-stricken 
Russia had jumped from $.04 in three decades up to $3.27. This gain 
was a monument to the late Mr. Witte, who largely brought it about. In 
1901 Canada had only $14.00 per capita in her savings banks. Aus- 
tralia had $23.00 ; New Zealand had $40.00. But Denmark stood at the 
head of the list with $76.00. 

But it should be finally added, in making any sort of an accurate esti- 
mate of the thrift of the United States, that in the last decade the Ameri- 
can people have invested sl billion dollars in new issues of bonds and se- 
curities. 

867 



PART IV CHAPTER XII 

GREAT AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS 



'Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, 
Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain ; 
Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw. 
Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law." 

— Story. 



THE American newspaper is to-day one of our greatest institu- 
tions. It stands in the financial ranks with banking, railroad- 
ing, and manufacturing. Here in America there are but two 
estates — a free people and a free press — and against these com- 
bined forces no human power can exist. "Four hostile newspapers," ex- 
claimed Napoleon, ''are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." 
The newspapers stand "between the governors and the governed, and form 
the single organ of both." 

Modern civilization is erected on the power of public print. The 
modem Atlas, supporting the world on his shoulders, is the printing-press. 
It is the printed page that sustains the power of law, that supports religion, 
that makes education possible, that underwrites all the trade and commerce 
of the earth. 

The modem American newspaper is more powerful than the preach- 
ers; greater than the political bosses; it is the main strength of the business 
world and the people's grand jury of the whole. Newspapers mold opin- 
ion; they preach to millions, and they enlighten and guide the democratic 
multitude. Without them liberty, democracy, and self-government would 
be incomprehensible and therefore impossible. Every historic democracy 
before our own perished for want of a free press; our newspapers are the 
very life breath of our institutions. They are the very atmosphere of our 
minds, the throb of our great common heart. They are what we are and 
what we have made them. Nothing else that we have created is so truly 
a part of our life and being as the daily and weekly records of our history. 

To have a correct knowledge of human affairs, to be well informed, 
it is necessary to-day to read the current daily and weekly press. Fully 
300,000 miles of ocean cables beneath the seven seas, wireless telegraphy 
and the telephone, with a dragnet of wires over this continent, bring the 
important events and affairs of the world daily into every center of popu- 
lation through the printed page of the local current press. It correctly 
and daily interprets the amazing age of scientific progress in which we 

868 



GREAT AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS 

live. The important achievements of the human race of every character 
are expressed in the most engaging and attractive form. 

The four cornerstones in the building of our national structure are 
the schools and colleges, churches and libraries, but the current press of 
the nation rises like a great gilded dome toward which the eyes of all 
our people are turned constantly. It is conservatively true that the local 
newspaper in every community has larger influence with the entire popu- 
lation of men, women, and children than all four of the previously men- 
tioned educational institutions. We are not trying to draw in this state- 
ment any unfavorable comparison but simply stating a fact that has ar- 
ranged its own conclusion. To-day, the newspaper seeks every person upon 
the street, in the cars, in the homes; it is practically everywhere and not 
to be avoided. It is significant that the non-progressive countries that 
have slumbered through the centuries have no current press. They can- 
not bring about a world-wide interchange of ideas which the modern press 
accomplishes in our nation. 

There are about 28,000 publications in the United States distributed 
through our forty-eight States. They are divided among daily news- 
papers, weekly newspapers, monthly periodicals and quarterlies, scientific, 
religious, and trade papers relating to various industries. It may be said 
to-day that any man can sit in his own house with his newspaper and 
periodicals before him and truly say, "Old Mother Earth, I know you." 
The news of to-day is divided into two classes; general informative news 
and business news. Our great commercial enterprises could not distribute 
their commodities, and make our vast population acquainted with their 
value, except through advertising in the current press. To-day business 
news or advertising is almost as important to our general population as 
informative news. 

Our newspapers, which to-day are great in size, great in energy and 
enterprise, swift in action and achievement, the mirror of the greatest free 
and popular movement of humanity on earth — had the most humble be- 
ginning. The first American newspaper was the Boston News-Letter; 
its first real news was the execution of six pirates in that city on June 
30th, 1704. The report of this event filled nearly half the little sheet. 
Within twenty years, four more little sheets, the Gazette and Mercury 
in Boston, the Mercury in Philadelphia, and the Gazette in New York, 
came into existence. The news from Europe was the most important news. 
Scarcely anything that took place in this country got into print in the 
colonial days. A month was then relatively longer than an hour now. 

During Washington's administration the Minerva was founded in 
New York in 1793. It was renamed The Commercial Advertiser in 1797, 

369 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

and is to-day The Globe — a paper that always has shown great enterprise 
in national affairs. 

The newspapers later fought the American Revolution, helped mold 
the Constitution, directed the new nation, by acting as the link that united 
the people to a common cause. The Courier and Inquirer^ of New York, 
and its rival, the Journal of Commerce^ organized swift news schooners 
in 1830 to meet the incoming ships one hundred miles out. Then, some 
years later, the Journal of Commerce established a pony express between 
New York and Philadelphia, later extending it to Washington, and by 
this means published the news of Congress and of the South a day in ad- 
vance of its competitor. 

The definite beginning of the great national American newspaper 
dates from about 1835. -^^ ^^^ ^tn that James Gordon Bennett, the 
elder, the first American reporter, published the New York Herald, a 
penny sheet, from a cellar in Nassau Street, and fairly startled the staid, 
easy going world of that day with the clearly stated, outstanding facts in 
his reports, and with the striking headlines of the printed page. News at 
once became a living thing. Bennett created the interview. 

There is no business in the world that requires such enterprise, such 
activity, such creative power and ingenuity as the making of a newspaper. 
Bennett was longing for a great event to demonstrate his enterprise. It 
came in 1838; the little steamer Sirius, the first regular steamship to cross 
the ocean from England to the Untied States arrived at New York. 
Like the true newspaper prophet that he was, he took passage on the 
steamer on its return to Europe, and appointed correspondents in London 
and Paris for his American paper — this is the beginning of the forei^ 
correspondent. 

But Bennett's departure in journalism did not move Boston or Phila- 
delphia to imitate it. The Boston Daily Journal refused to send a re- 
porter to Brighton to report the speech of Daniel Webster, the most im- 
portant piece of news of the day. Bennett organized a long distance pony 
express from New Orleans to New York in 1845 and "beat" the Govern- 
ment so badly in getting news of the Mexican War, that the Postmaster 
General attempted to stop the enterprise. 

Then came the telegraph — the twin brother of modem journalism. 
Great names in the history of the American newspaper now began to loom 
upon the horizon. It is a galaxy of genius — master minds, statesmen 
of the public print — Among them were Bennett, Bryant, Greeley, Ray- 
mond, Webb, Reid, Dana, Godkin, and Pulitzer, of New York; Hale, 
Taylor, and others, of Boston; Childs, McClure and Smith, of Philadel- 
phia; Abel, of Baltimore; Bowles, of Springfield, Massachusetts; Medill, 

370 




WHERE '•THE STAK-SPANGLED BANNER" WAS WRITTEN— Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Mary- 
land — It was here that Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem while 
detained in the British fleet during bombardment of this fort in 1814. 




CONQUEST OF THE CONTINENT^— This photograph is taken at Battle Hollow, near Victory, 

Wisconsin, where the last great battle of the Black Hawk War was fought in 1832 — 

White settlers were massacred but Black Hawk surrendered. 




s® 



GREAT AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS 

Nixon, Stone, and Storey, of Chicago; Halstead and McLean, of Cin- 
cinnati; Prentice and Watterson, of Louisville; Cowles and Armstrong, 
of Cleveland; Locke (Petroleum V. Nasby), of Toledo; Belo, of Gal- 
veston; Ouinby, of Detroit; Wheelock, of St. Paul; Jones, Knapp, and 
McCullough, of St. Louis; De Young, of San Francisco; Grady, of At- 
lanta; Dawson, of Charleston, South Carolina — and many other geniuses. 

The American Civil War was fought in the columns of the news- 
papers; they recruited the armies, molded the political opinion and action, 
brought Lincoln to the front and made him known to the people. The 
papers became vigorous personal organs. The editors were greater than 
their papers — they were nation-builders. This was the character of the 
American newspaper for fifty years. Bennett had taught the world the 
power of news; Raymond, and Dana, and Medill, and others, taught re- 
porters how to write news, and then came Joseph Pulitzer to teach the 
newspaper how to make news a necessary commodity. From the entry 
of Pulitzer, in 1885, the American newspaper began its evolution into 
a great impersonal institution. The reporter mounted the throne of the 
editor. "Give us facts," cried the man in the street, "we know what they 
mean." The news columns expanded as historical records to cover every 
phase of human life — even to catch the immemorial and sacred private 
life of men, and the editorial page shrunk accordingly — a sure sign of 
democracy spreading and growing. The people, rather than the editors 
were now making the newspaper. The masses, the men in the street, be- 
came news. In half a century, the value of facts concerning human events, 
reported simply but graphically, increased ten thousand per cent. With- 
out the publication of such facts now, the Government would perish and 
the whole social fabric collapse. To-day, men must know ten thousand 
times more about what one another is doing than they were required to 
know a century ago. The telegraph, the telephone, the improvement in 
the printing press, the invention of the linotype, and the typewriter, and 
the building of the railroad, brought about this need — with the newspaper 
as the great dynamic power behind them. The need of general information 
and communication — an instinct developed by the newspaper—urged men 
to invent these instruments of knowledge. The American newspaper is 
the consummation of all great modern inventions. 

Let us trace briefly the great newspapers through the age of the per- 
sonal editors to their present impersonal status where their names conceal 
the identity of armies of editors and writers — the recorders of history. 

A virile, editorial power of his times was Nathan Hale, nephew and 
namesake of the glorious "patriot spy." He gave to the Boston Daily 
Advertiser, the first daily published, a character for excellence. He was 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

a strong force in American affairs for many years, writing all his editorials 
and stamping into every sentence and phrase his robust personality. But 
he did more for the American newspaper than edit it; he harnessed its 
printing to steam, adapted the stereotyping process, and led the way in 
many other improvements. Rather than print a falsehood in his paper, 
he would wait to verify the news. Among Hale's distinguished contribu- 
tors were Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, Ticknor, Prescott and the poet 
Bryant. 

A vigorous name in the history of American newspapers is Samuel 
Bowles, of the Springfield Republican — one of its greatest exemplars of 
American journalism. Every youth within the last forty years, who in- 
tended to become an educated newspaper man, was advised to study the 
career and the writings of the editor of the Springfield Republican^ which 
was for many years one of the two most carefully read journals in all 
editorial ofBces — the other being the New York Evening Post. The 
Republican combined the excellences of both the American and the 
English press. 

When the elder Bennett started the Herald^ one of the men he 
approached with an offer of partnership was Horace Greeley, then a printer 
and editor of the New Yorker. Greeley, on learning of Bennett's meager 
resources (Bennett had only $250 to start with) refused. Greeley began 
the publication of the New York Tribune in 1841, which aimed at the 
moulding of public opinion by the power of its editorials. The Herald 
and the Commercial Advertiser had formed the first press association, and 
the Tribune was the first "reformer" in American journalism. Greeley not 
only stoutly advocated in his editorials abolition, woman's rights, temper- 
ance, and the abolition of capital punishment, but he engaged Margaret 
Fuller to investigate the condition of the poor in New York City — the first 
woman reporter. 

Then came the rugged figure of Henry J. Raymond, who founded the 
New [York Times., and Charles A. Dana, who transformed the New 
York Sun into a great newspaper. Greeley was the first great "leader" 
writer in American journalism; Raymond was one of the best equipped 
all-around editors of any time; and Dana was never surpassed for his 
pungent, exquisite English and his inimitable art of statement. The elder 
Bennett, Greeley and Raymond passed away; then came the younger Ben- 
nett, who inherited his father's enterprise — and later Pulitzer. For fifteen 
years the great leaders in New York journalism were Dana, Bennett and 
Pulitzer. Bennett sent Stanley to Africa; Dana became a political power 
and scourge to the White House; and there was not a week that Pulitzer 
did not box the compass in his eternal hunger for news. 

874 



GREAT AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS 

Great editors were rising in all parts of the country. Philadelphia 
had her trio of newspaper statesmen — A. K. McClure, of the Philadelphia 
Times; Charles Emory Smith, of the Philadelphia Fress, and George 
W. Childs of the Ledger. Childs was famous for his philanthropies, for 
his fine citizenship, and for publishing one of the ablest journals in the 
country. McClure had been an intimate of Lincoln and was an ardent 
friend of the impoverished South. He never failed to aid that section in 
his paper all through the doleful years when traduction prevailed. Smith 
was one of the editorial forces of the Republican party. 

One of the strongest factors in national affairs was the Chicago 
Tribune^ under the editorial management of Joseph Medill. Medill was 
one of the strongest personal forces in journalism this country has ever 
produced. There was no great venture in journalism, no redoubt of news 
worth capturing, that the Chicago Tribune and its editor would not dare 
to take. But the Tribune's neighbors, the Chicago Inter Ocean^ Times, 
News and Record-Herald were scarcely less enterprising. The iconoclastic 
daring of Chicago journalism even startled New York with its Pulitzers 
and Hearsts. Chicago journalism, like the city itself, has long been one of 
the wonders of the times. 

The Middle West has many powerful newspapers. Detroit has long 
had a great journal in the Free Press on which "M. Quad" (Charles B. 
Lewis) made his reputation. Cleveland has for more than forty years had 
two superb papers in the Leader and Flaindealer; Toledo in the same state 
has given to the country one of its famous journals, the Blade. During 
the war no man read more carefully the letters of "Petroleum V. Nasby" 
than did Mr. Lincoln. In reconstruction days Nasby's pen made the 
Blade sought through all the Central West. In southern Ohio, Murat 
Halstead in Cincinnati had built up the Commercial Gazette to a place, 
where it had become to the Republican party of the Central West a power 
like Greeley's New York Tribune in the East. 

As we enter the Southern States, we find in Kentucky, Colonel Henry 
Watterson, who inherited the editorial chair of George D. Prentice on the 
Louisville Journal, consolidated it with the Courier, and for a long genera- 
tion has stood with his Courier- Journal in the forefront of great American 
newspapers. Its personal power, with Colonel Watterson still editing it, 
even survived the "golden age" of impersonal journalism. Indeed, Colonel 
Watterson is the last of the great personal journalists. 

St. Louis has given to the American people two great newspapers, the 
Globe-Democrat and the Republican. The Globe-Democrat, a radical 
Republican paper, became a virile journalistic force in the Southwest in 
the later seventies and eighties under the direction of J. B. McCullaugh, 

375 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

who in defining journalism said "it is that thing which is always on the spot 
when hell breaks loose." Charles W. Knapp made the Republic what it 
long has been, the great political rival of the Globe-Democrat. Kansas 
City has a great newspaper in the Star. 

Passing into the West, St. Paul and Minneapolis have been fortunate 
in possessing such excellent papers as the Pioneer-Press and the Sentinel. 
Denver is proud of the Rocky Mountain News. San Francisco was noted 
as far back as twenty-five years ago for its Chronicle, Call, and Examiner. 
These papers have long kept pace with the great Eastern papers. 

The Southern States have stood for the ablest journalism. After the 
war, Colonel A. H. Belo rode all the way on horseback from Virginia to 
Galveston, Texas, secured control of the News, edited it for nearly thirty 
years, and made it the great paper of Texas. Who has not heard of the 
New Orleans Picayune? For twenty-five years, one could scarcely read a 
column of copied paragraphs in any paper in the country without finding 
the Picayune, the Detroit Free Press., the Toledo Blade and the Yonkers 
Statesman quoted. But New Orleans has long had another famous paper, 
the Times-Democrat. Memphis has its Appeal. Atlanta has its Consti- 
tuti-on, the paper through which Henry W. Grady made the "New South" 
conscious of itself and of its great future. Atlanta journalism is in its way 
as wonderful as Chicago journalism. There is nothing in its sphere too 
great for it to attempt, and this has been true ever since Grady inspired the 
Constitution. In the News and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, has 
for over a half century had a potent moulder of Southern opinion. In the 
reconstruction days, and after when Colonel F. W. Dawson edited the 
News and Courier, the whole nation watched for its utterances. Balti- 
more, in the Sun and the American, has stood in the foreranks in the proces- 
sion of journalism. 

The last two decades in American journalism have witnessed the rise 
of the two modern factors in journalism — Pulitzer and Hearst, moulders 
and formers of a new style of journalism which has injected itself more or 
less into every community. Pulitzer was a foreign element, an importa- 
tion. He was unquestionably the great factor of modern journalism. 
These two men introduced the progressive features of modern journalism, 
magazines, comics, political cartoon, human interest articles, etc. Previous 
to them, the newspaper was a chronicler and purveyor of news, stated in a 
comparatively conservative and prosaic style. They introduced the snap 
and sparkle into up-to-date journalism and have demonstrated that while 
' the newspaper primarily is a purveyor of news, to fulfill its proper func- 
tions in any community, it is also a teacher, a preacher and a servant to the 
interests of the people. 

87S 




GREAT AMEKU'AN INVEJS'TIONS — Alexander (iraliani r.oll, inventor of the telepl-.one, opening 

first long distance line between New York and Chicago in 1S92 — Human voice first 

spake across continent from New York to San Francisco In 1915. 




^OKSK.lM^SBmL'SmKJ 



FAMOUS ASSEMBLAGE GREETING BENJAMIN FRANKLIX-Anions those present on this historic occa- 
sion were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Burke, the Bishop of Salisbury Dr Priest- 
ley, and ladies of the nobility — This rare engraving was made in 1859. 




FIRST AMERICAN STATESMAN TO APPEAR BEFORE BRITISH LORDS— This historic ongraviuj,' shows 

Benjamin Franklin as he stood before the lords in council at Whiteliall (.Miapel in London in 

1774 — Franklin is presenting the American cause to the mother country. 



GREAT AIMERICAN NEWSPAPERS 

We have considered, in the foregoing list, some of the representative 
American newspapers. But nearly every city in the country, even rank- 
ing as low down as 25,000 inhabitants, has had for many years one or more 
first class newspapers. All the papers mentioned above have progressed 
from "personal journalism" to the "new journalism" and are more power- 
ful to-day than ever before. From personal organs, they have become great 
financial enterprises. Their capital has been increased from ten to a 
hundred fold within the last twenty years. These solid papers are estab- 
lished on as firm a foundation now as the great banks, the big factories, 
and the giant corporations of the country. Journalism has been organized 
as a science, an art, and a business. The collection and purveyance of 
news by these institutions, with their press association and other vast facili- 
ties, are worked out on the scale of governments and nations. 

And the greater the American newspaper grows, the clearer stands out 
this fact, that this country, with its vast area and broad democracy, can 
never have one paramount national newspaper as the London Times was 
for so long a time in England. Ever}' city and section will have its great 
newspapers, but even New York, with its gigantic financial power and influ- 
ence, cannot control the fields in Boston, or Philadelphia, or Washington. 
This fact keeps the journalism of the country on an even keel and standard- 
izes the news of the nation. If any city has no strong newspaper to-day, 
it is largely its own fault and not due to the competition of another city. 
There are few exceptions in the comparatively small cities within the radius 
of Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, New Or- 
leans, and San Francisco. But there can be no great national newspaper 
in this country, no more than there can be a great national city which 
controls all other cities. Each newspaper performs its own important 
duties in its own field. 

As the national and the state news have been standardized in its col- 
lection and purveyance, a newspaper in one city differs from that in other 
cities only in its local character. Without this emphasis on local news, 
local self-government would not be possible. One of the greatest services 
of the American newspapers has been their work for municipal reform 
within the last twenty years. 

There is one more point, among the multitude that might be cited in 
weighing the value of the American newspaper — it is its economic value. 
The whole modem mercantile world is being built upon the newspaper, 
and its prosperity depends upon the newspaper. The public press stands 
like the telephone and the telegraph, it is the message-bearer between the 
separated parties at each end of the line — it brings them together and into 
communication and agreement. Its advertising columns arc the links bc- 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

twecn the selling world and the buying world — one of the most important 
economic links in our whole system of civilization. The newspaper, there- 
fore, is not only the power that unites the peoples of the earth under a 
common intelligence — the greatest democratizer in the world ; it is the key- 
stone of our political institutions, the foundation of our civic and social 
structure; the champion of law and ethics; the supreme court of public 
opinion. It is all these, and much more — it is the Ambassador of the Busi- 
ness World. 



882 



PART V CHAPTER XIII 



GREAT AMERICAN STATESMEN 



"Let the bugles sound the Truce of God to the whole world forever.' 

— Charles Sumner. 



p 



*' T"^ EACE rules the day, where reason rules the mind" — this truism, 
or altruism, is the basis of American statesmanship. And yet 
the true statesman realizes that reason unfortunately does not 
always "rule the mind" and therefore peace does not always 
"rule the day." "We love peace," said Jerrold, "as we abhor pusillanim- 
ity; but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the 
manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body. 
Chains are worse than bayonets." 

True statesmanship is not the art of diplomatic strategy, or political 
intrigue, or secret machinations and agreements ; it knows neither cunning, 
wit, nor power of personal persuasion. It is first, last, and all the time de- 
fending the principles for which a nation stands and, by the power of right 
and justice inherent in those principles, bringing them to a peaceful tri- 
umph over all opposition by the force of their own truth. Statesmanship 
is justice prevailing over injustice, right over wrong; it is the essence of 
absolute fairness among men and nations. Pope in his moral essays speaks 
of a statesman as: 

"Statesman, yet friend to Truth, of soul sincere, 
In action faithful and in honour clear; 
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, 
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend." 

Burke, in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France," defines states- 
manship as "a disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken to- 
gether, would be my standard of a statesman." 

Here in America we have developed, if unselfishness, world-vision, 
and nobility of purpose are any criterion — a new type of statesmen pledged 
to the immortal doctrine of Lincoln "that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Let us 
measure some of our statesmen by this high standard. 

Personal or party preferences may influence us in our estimates of 
the services rendered to this country by the various statesmen who have 

388 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

guided its destinies. On one point, however, we are all agreed — their 
attainments in statesmanship were the result of their own individual ex- 
ertions and force of character rather than of fortunate circumstances. Suc- 
cess of achievement was invariably the result of nobility of aim. 

An ardent love of liberty characterized the earliest colonial statesmen: 
John Winthrop, Roger Williams, William Penn. The free spirit that was 
to detach the colonies from the mother country is well reflected in Penn's 
famous statement: "Liberty without obedience is confusion and obedience 
without liberty is slavery." 

The first statesman to see the advantages of American independence 
from Great Britain was Samuel Adams (1722-1803), who has been called 
the "Father of the American Revolution." When he took his master's 
degree at Harvard College, in 1743, he declared in his oration that "it is 
lawful to resist the supreme magistrate if the commonwealth cannot other- 
wise be preserved." 

The first great American statesman of world renown, however, is 
Washington (1732-1799), a man whom his countrymen offered to make 
a king, but who was to carry out that proposition in freedom. Physically 
and mentally, he was fit to become the "Father of his country," embody- 
ing as he did every ideal of manhood. Over six feet in height, robust 
and perfectly erect, solid rather than brilliant, and endowed with more 
judgment than genius, he carefully weighed his decisions; but his policy 
once settled was pursued with steadiness and dignity, however great the 
opposition. A firm advocate of free institutions, he believed in a strong 
government and rigidly enforced laws. As an officer, he was brave, en- 
terprising, and cautious. He showed in his campaigns the qualities that 
made him a great statesman. His tactics were always judicious. As Lord 
Brougham said : "Until time shall be no more, a test of the progress which 
our race has made in wisdom and virtue will be derived from the veneration 
paid the immortal name of Washington." 

The American nation had a hard struggle for existence. The theory 
of self-government was an experiment. The new republic was threatened 
with bankruptcy. European powers were taking full advantage of the 
conditions. In a brief time 900 ships had been seized by the British and 
550 by the French. While President Madison insisted on temporizing, 
the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay (1777-1852), waged a strong 
fight to defend the honor of the country. All the committees of the house 
were placed under the control of the war party. The results of the War 
of 1812 justified Clay's attitude. "Let any man," he said, "look at the 
degraded condition of his country before the war, the scorn of the universe, 
the contempt of ourselves, and tell me if we have gained nothing by war. 

384 




'GIVE ME LIBERTY OK (iHl-: MK I 'KATI 1" ^Patrick ll(ii!.\ dilnoiins his epoch-makinj 

oration before the Convention in Kichnion 1, \a., on March US, 1775 — The 

firebrand that ignited the spirit of Revolution. 




END OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION — This engraving shows Washington resignini 
commission as Commander-in-chief of the American army at Annapolis, 
December 2'.\, 1783 — He had led his people to independence. 



his 



>GREAT AMERICAN STATESMEN 

What is our situation now*? Responsibility, and character abroad, security 
and confidence at home." 

This was Henry Clay — a statesman. Through his strenuous and pic- 
turesque career, Clay, who had been called a Southern man with Northern 
ideals, never forgot the distressed and oppressed of this and other lands. 
His sympathies went out not only to the Latin-American republics, but 
to Greece, to Hungary, and to the enslaved Africans of our own country. 
Many a time he offered to free his slaves provided some one guaranteed 
their maintenance. At his death, Lincoln pronounced his eulogy. 

The "great expounder of the constitution" was Daniel Webster 
(1782-1852). He is still discussed by historians. Was his attitude to- 
ward the tariff statesmanlike? His enemies point out that he changed 
sides on that question. His friends remark that New England was not 
in favor of a protective tariff in 1826 but was in favor of it two years 
later. His enemies declare that he sacrificed principle for personal ex- 
pediency when the slavery compromise of 1850 came up for discussion. 
No man had denounced slavery more bitterly than he did, but he was 
willing to support the Fugitive Law and to leave the question of slavery 
in the new Territories to the laws of nature. His friends and enemies 
alike, however, agree that he was honest. He died very poor and deeply 
in debt. A lawyer and orator of genius, a great power in the land, a de- 
fender of the nationality of the States, he was all his life unalterably de- 
voted to the perpetuity and integrity of the Union. 

The third brilliant star that shone in the political sky of the Amer- 
ican republic during the first half of the Nineteenth Century was John C. 
Calhoun (1782-1850). A Southerner bom and bred, his logic was con- 
vincing, his reasoning implacable, his intellect calm. The fire of his 
genius burnt itself out in a defense of the institution of State rights, 
and he died just as the cause to which he had devoted his life was on the 
point of decision. An ardent patriot, he did more than any other man to 
bring about the annexation of Texas and, although a great pacifist, he 
sounded the clarion call when the country was in danger of aggression at 
the hands of England and France. He was an ardent supporter of the 
policy of internal improvements. He projected national roads, a system 
of inland navigation destined to foster commercial relations between the 
various parts of the country. A fervent advocate of State rights, he earned 
the name of the Great NuUifier. Though he had ambitious dreams, his 
course was singularly free from even the appearance of self-seeking. And 
no breath of slander ever stained his name. The great system of national 
transportation which Calhoun had planned was to be realized — but in a 
way that Calhoun had little dreamt. Instead of roads and canals, rail- 

387 



AMERICA: >THE LAND .WE LOVE 

roads were to unite North and South, East and West, and open that 
hitherto nnysterious land lying beyond the Mississippi which until then had 
only been "The West." 

The first great statesman for American expansion was Thomas H. 
Benton (1782-1858). He devoted the thirty years of his parliamentary 
activity to a strenuous fight for railroad construction and development. 
His efforts finally culminated in the building of the great Central Pacific 
Railroad. Born in North Carolina, Benton was, however, a typical West- 
erner of the aggressive, alert, self -asserting kind. He had no sectional 
prejudice and did his best to develop every part of the country without 
showing any partiality. A great railroadman by vocation, he put him- 
self on record in many other directions. He combated fiercely the spoils 
system introduced in American politics, and it was the boast of his life 
that none of his blood-relations had ever asked for office. Although 
a slave-holder from a slave State, Benton allied himself with the Union 
and opposed Calhoun's plan of nullification. His love of freedom and 
independence caused him also to support Jackson in the fight against the 
rechartering of the United States Bank. He felt that such an institution 
would eventually wield too great an influence upon the people and the 
government of the States. His heroic attitude cost him his seat in the 
Senate and later his seat in the House. He then retired from public life 
and undertook his work, "Thirty Years' View," one of the greatest records 
of political life in America. 

Typical of the romantic days in politics, when great events crowded 
upon one another, is the life story of William H. Seward (1801-1872). 
Running away from home at seventeen, and being a few years later ap- 
pointed principal of Union College at Eatonton, Georgia, is an extraor- 
dinary debut for a young man. He was not destined to become an edu- 
cator, however. At thirty-three, we find him almost elected to the gov- 
ernorship of New York State. Four years later he carried the election. 
During his governorship, many wise measures were introduced. Impris- 
onment for debt was abolished, the cause of general education was ad- 
vanced, internal improvements were made, and foreign immigration fos- 
tered. A rival of Lincoln and then a member of his cabinet, he fought 
bravely for the abolition of slavery; a deep friendship united the former 
rivals and only a mere hazard saved Seward from sharing the fate of the 
martyr President. An important incident of Seward's career was the pur- 
chase of Alaska from Russia by the United States Government — a trans- 
action that he conducted with great skill and ability. 

We now stand face to face with democracy's greatest champion — 
humanity's statesman — ^Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) — a man who was 

388 



GREAT AMERICAN STATESMEN 

much more than a statesman, who was a giant in every way, physically, 
mentally, spiritually. To recount his achievements or even barely to enu- 
merate the problems which he mastered during his Presidency would fill 
volumes. We prefer to present him in this short sketch as a typical 
product of the heroic times in which the republic was struggling to as- 
sume shape, consistency, and permanency. The son of New Englanders, 
who migrated from the Atlantic coast to Kentucky, thence to Indiana and 
finally to Illinois, Lincoln led first the rough and ready life of a fron- 
tiersman. He chopped wood, and split rails, and did carpenter work. 
He went to school not more than a year in his entire life. But he read 
every book and newspaper available, and everything he read he made his 
own. Whatever he undertook, he mastered. Storekeeper, postmaster, 
land surveyor, lawyer — he studied in actual practise all the economic, po- 
litical, and human problems which he had to solve late in life. His kind 
nature, his broad mind, his inexhaustible wit, together with his strange 
physical appearance, have made of him a fascinating figure — perhaps even 
more attractive to the American people than that of Washington. With 
all his sterling qualities, Washington was to a certain extent tinged with 
aristocratic tendencies after the English heart, but Lincoln, the rough 
Kentucky boy, was in the noblest sense of the word a self-made man — 
the greatest claim to the admiration of a manly, vigorous race. Lincoln 
stands before the world as "the Great Emancipator"; his great humane 
policies during the American Civil War, his speeches which embody the 
whole spirit of a free people, make Lincoln without peer the greatest ex- 
ponent of democracy in the world's history. 

American party politics and diplomacy bring forth many strong fig- 
ures but it is our purpose here only to sketch a few whose human qual- 
ities were preeminent. There was Samiuel J. Tilden (1814-1886) — at 
eighteen years of age he made just one address to the people of New York 
State that undermined one of the most powerful party coalitions in his- 
tory. His address prevented the Anti-Jackson men and the Anti-Masons 
from carrying the State in 1832. Years later, he was to break up the ring 
which under the leadership of William M. Tweed ruled New York City 
from 1869 to 1871. As Governor of New York State, one of his first 
acts was to attack the so-called "Canal Ring" which was robbing the State 
and preying upon internal commerce. 

Statesmanship found a stalwart champion in James G. Blaine (1830- 
1893), Secretary of State under Presidents Garfield and Harrison. Aiier- 
ica is indebted to him for initiating the movement which is knitting more 
and more closely together all the Americans. Forty years ago, when this 
country was totally indifferent to the opportunities of Latin American 

389 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

commerce, Blaine advocated the payment of subsidies to steamship lines 
plying between the ports of the United States and those of Central and 
South America. He showed how the great trade of those countries went 
to Europe instead of coming to the United States and organized the first 
Pan-American Congress which has cemented the relations of the republics 
on the Western Hemisphere. 

One of the most admirable figures in all the history of American 
statesmanship was John Hay (1838-1905). He distinguished himself in 
four great spheres of action — in journalism, in literature, in diplomacy, 
and in administrative statecraft. He was one of America's greatest edi- 
tors, justly entitled to a place with Greeley and Dana and Raymond. 
As the author of the "Pike County Ballads," he stands with Lowell. At 
the court of St. James, he forever clinched the friendship between England 
and America and rendered to both countries a service only second to that 
of Charles Francis Adams during our Civil War. As Secretary of State 
he easily won from England, through his great skill, the Hay-Pauncefotc 
Treaty, which gave America the right unmolested to build and own the 
Panama Canal. He also won for America and for the Chinese the open 
door in China. But Hay was born to inherit a great opportunity. He 
came to be at Lincoln's elbow and to hear the whisper of his great soul in 
the country's darkest hour. Hay had his Lincoln, but it should be recorded 
that Lincoln had his Hay and we should never know Lincoln as we do 
without this gifted secretary. From Hay's diaries and other papers pub- 
lished after his death, it is easy to follow the work of his hand in the Lin- 
coln administration. Hay was not only a wise statesman but a man of 
great nobility of character and personal attractiveness. 

These incidents in the lives of American statesmen might be enu- 
merated indefinitely, while the achievements of the great diplomatists 
present the large phases of world statesmanship, but it is sufficient to state 
here that each generation — every session of the United States Senate, every 
political administration develops "a man of the hour." 

American statesmanship is, and will forever remain, the foe to but 
one thing — that is, injustice. It is and forever must be working for but 
one purpose — that is, humanity. In the words of John Quincy Adams : 

"This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, 
For Freedom only deals the deathly blow ; 
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, 
For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade." 



^0 




BATTLE OF BrXKER HILL IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION — This memorable scene was enacted 

on June 17, 1775 — The British, under General Gage, occupied Boston — ^The Americans were 

fortifying the heights of Charleston — About 2 MO o'clock in the morning, the British 

aflvanced with terrific fire and were twice repulsed in disorder — The Americans 

exhausted their ammunition and were forced to retreat — General 

Warren, fell, shot through the head with a bullet. 



PART V CHAPTER XIV 

GREAT AMERICAN SOLDIERS 



"The hero is the world-man, in whose heart 
One passion stands for all, the most indulged." 
— Bailey: "Festus." 



THE soldier is and ever will be a mighty man; because he places 
above self the honor and integrity of his country. His willing- 
ness to sacrifice his life for a cause or a principle is one of the 
noblest expressions of human love. The lines from Niks, in 
his poem "The American Hero," give this valuation: 

"Life, for my country and the cause of freedom. 
Is but a trifle for a worm to part with ; 
And, if preserved in so great a contest, 
Life is redoubled." 

The trade of soldier is one of the great evolutionary steps in human 
society. To him we owe not only the defense of our lives, our rights, and 
our property, but the human liberties that we now enjoy. The security 
with which we now live and move and have our being is due largely to the 
soldier; he fought and conquered the primitive instincts and primeval dan- 
gers; he protected and defended with his life the communities of interest 
that were nurtured into national ideals; and he has maintained these groups 
against extermination by other groups with his own valor and his own 
blood. Wordsworth paid the soldier this tribute: 

"Doomed to go in company with pain. 
And fear, and bloodshed, miserable train. 
Turns his necessity to glorious gain ; 
In face of these doth exercise a power 
Which is our human nature's highest dower." 

With the coming of what we herald as the "war-less age" — an age 
when there shall be neither wars nor need for wars — the duty of the sol- 
dier should pass, but his deeds of valor will never dim. "Hero worship 
exists," said Carlyle, "has existed, and will forever exist, universally among 
mankind." A thousand years after the last bugle of war may have 
sounded, the laurels will still be laid on the soldier's grave — even though 
we shall have discovered in those days with Whittier that "peace hath 
higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew." 

Napoleon, in speaking of the science of strategy, said: "The pres- 
ence of a general is indispensable. He is the head, the entire army. It 

393 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

was not the Roman army which conquered Gaul, but Csesar ; it was not the 
Carthaginian army which made the republic tremble at the gates of Rome, 
but Hannibal ; it was not the Macedonian army which was upon the Indus, 
but Alexander; it was not the French army which carried war on the Weser 
and the Inn, but Turenne; it was not the Prussian army which for seven 
years defended Prussia against the greatest powers of Europe, but Frederick 
the Great." 

This continent had produced great soldiers before the American Revo- 
lution, but they were then either English or French. It was only after 
Lexington and Concord that we can speak of American soldiers. The 
first great American soldier is Washington, the Virginian. Twenty days 
after the actual beginning of the Revolution, he was appointed Comman- 
der-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Washington had in the course of 
the French and Indian wars earned the reputation of a successful military 
man. When he accepted the commission in the Revolutionary Army, he 
stipulated that he was to receive no pay for his services. Upon reaching 
the headquarters of the army in Cambridge his difficulties were great. The 
army was unorganized. The soldiers were impatient under camp life and 
camp discipline and were discouraged by the lack of ammunition. This 
was the critical situation. Washington molded this fighting material into 
a great military organization, restored confidence, and aroused the inspira- 
tion which developed into the "spirit of '76." 

American patriotism was organized into an efficient, vigorous, vic- 
torious force that finally swept the last vestige of monarchy from the Amer- 
ican colonies. When, after the siege of Boston, General Washington be- 
took himself to New York, which was threatened by the English, then 
occupying Staten Island, he had only 20,000 troops, ill-prepared and sup- 
plied with poor weapons. The English had 700 ships and 30,000 trained 
troops. The English were well drilled, plentifully supplied with ammuni- 
tion, and regularly paid. 

While we cannot in the space at our disposal recount the glorious his- 
tory of the American Revolution, it will be quite sufficient to bear in mind 
the various handicaps that the Commander-in-Chief suffered to realize the 
full meaning of his final triumph. One of his greatest achievements, 
and one to which historians seldom refer, was the tremendous task of dis- 
banding the army when peace again reigned in the land. Washington's 
firmness, his good sense, his tact saved the country from what might have 
been a terrible crisis. He bade farewell to his officers and retired from 
public life until 1789, when his grateful fellow-citizens conferred upon 
him the greatest honor it was theirs to give — that of first President of the 
United States. 

394 



GREAT AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

The most eminent soldier produced by the American Revolution 
(other than Washington) was Nathaniel Greene, a Rhode Island black- 
smith of Quaker birth. He was the fit counterpart of his great comman- 
der. Washington stood for the aristocracy of the South, Greene personi- 
fied nobly the democracy of the North. They came to mutual appreciation 
by their similar qualities of common sense, rectitude, courage, and untiring 
application to details. A wonderful tactician, Greene, when technically 
defeated, succeeded on every occasion in retreating in good order and in- 
flicting fearful losses on his enemies. It was after one of Greene's defeats 
that Charles James Fox exclaimed: "Another such victory would destroy 
the British army." 

A picturesque old warrior who appeals strongly to the imagination 
— a representative of the fervid Americanism born of the Revolution — is 
Andrew Jackson. He occupies a conspicuous place in the military annals 
of this country. Too young to take part in the War of the Revolution, 
he was old enough to acquire a heroic love of the cause which spurred him to 
vigorous action when the storm burst in the War of 1812. The revolt of 
the Creeks gave him an opportunity to show his value as a commander. 
When the Creek war was over, Jackson on his own responsibility conducted 
an operation against Spanish Florida. Then he hastened to the defense 
of New Orleans. Jackson's troops were rough frontiersmen, armed with 
good rifles, ignorant of tactics and discipline, but perfect marksmen. He 
led them to victory on that historic day in 1815. The British lost 3,300 
killed or wounded and 500 prisoners out of 7,000 men. The victor was 
suddenly magnified by this triumph, and the battle of New Orleans made 
him a representative figure in American politics. 

The war against Mexico developed two vigorous military characters. 
Zachary Taylor had been fighting the Indians for forty years when he was 
entrusted with the command of the army operating against Mexico from 
the north in 1846. Early in the war, he defeated overwhelmingly the 
Mexican forces at Monterey and Buena Vista. Politicians, however, were 
playing havoc with the plans of the various generals. Most of Taylor's 
troops were called back, and he was forced to discontinue operations. 
Feeling himself ill-used by the Government, he resigned his command. 
He left a lasting memory among his associates. His soldiers called him 
"Old Rough and Ready." He was to them the personification of justice 
and kindliness. A plain and direct man, he loathed "fuss and feathers," 
never wore a uniform, and went into action with a straw hat and a linen 
duster. 

Few American soldiers have been more neglected by historians than 
Winfield Scott. It was his misfortune to end his career when public at- 

395 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

tention was riveted on the tremendous events of the Civil War, which soon 
dimmed the memory of his exploits. Scott never was put to the test of 
handling large armies, but in his small field he played his part like a great 
strategist. His march from the coast to Mexico City, following closely 
the route once adopted by Cortez, would have ended tragically for most 
warriors. The natural obstacles encountered on his way to the table-land, 
and the superior numbers of the enemy, taxed heavily his commanding 
capacities, but his discipline, skill, and intelligence won the victory. In 
five months he reached Mexico City, and the war was practically ter- 
minated. 

It was the American Civil War that brought the great soldiers to the 
front — soldiers whose names stand to-day among the world's masters of 
military strategy. The genius behind the armies of the Union and the 
Confederacy made this war a terrific contest in the skill and wits of great 
men. Let us look first upon the strong, bold figure of the victor — the quiet 
man with the indomitable will — General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885). 
Here we see a graduate of West Point; he served in the Mexican War 
under Taylor and Scott. Through a chain of fortuitous circumstances he 
resigned from the army and became a clerk in his father's leather store 
in Illinois. There^it was that the outbreak of the Civil War found him. 
His past experience enabled him to forge rapidly to the front, and he was 
soon made a brigadier-general. His capture of Fort Donelson brought 
him prominently before the country, and the part he played in this coun- 
try's greatest war need not be retold. It is sufficient to state that by sheer 
force of decision, by his genius in commanding great bodies of men, by 
his skill in driving them through terrific campaigns, by his ability to wear 
down his adversary in numbers, munitions, and food supplies — by taking 
the fullest advantage of all these conditions and, above all, by his tenacity 
— he brought the Union arms to victory. 

And it was, a noble adversary that he met in a noble way on that mo- 
mentous day of surrender. Grant and Lee are two magnificent examples 
of American character at the moment of its supreme test. Grant ennobled 
victory; Lee ennobled defeat — both clasped hands as an expression of a re- 
united people and pledged themselves to the principles set forth in "Amer- 
ica — The Land We Love." There is no name in American history that 
evokes a more instant throb of affection in either the North or the South 
than that of Robert E. Lee. Leader of a lost cause, he won admiration 
in defeat by his great heart, his great soul, and his strength of character. 
Lee led his people through the greatest crisis in our national life — the sad- 
dest struggle in the history of nations. 

It is unnecessary here to discuss the causes of the Civil War; they were 

396 




BATTLE OF MONMOUTH IN AMERICAN UEVOLUTION— Here, in excessive heat after long 

marches, Washington's Army met Sir Henry Clinton on June i;.S, 177)S — Where 

Moll I'itcher took her dead husl)an(rs place as canoueer. 




BATTLE OF ECTAW SPRIX(;S IX AMERICAN REVOLITTIOX — This severe l)attle was fought 
in South Carolina, on September S. 1781 — The British were driven from the field but 
rallied unexpectedly and renewed the battle, finally to retreat. 



GREAT AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

indeed unfortunate, but as Americans to-day we can all pay tribute to 
Grant and Lee. Both have been accorded notable positions as great sol- 
diers. Lee fought a losing cause to exhaustion — and then won a great 
triumph of peace in his closing years. The scene of his surrender is prob- 
ably the most pathetic and affecting event of the whole war. A plain room 
with two men : one in gray, and the other in blue — Grant and Lee. The 
business that brought them together was settled in a few minutes. Grant, 
filled with reverence for the valor of his adversary, accorded him all the 
consideration he deserved and accepted the parole of 28,000 men and their 
officers. Having become once more a citizen of the United States, Lee 
maintained during the period of reconstruction an attitude of dignified 
silence and stood loyal to American institutions. 

The Civil War brought forth many strong men. Here we can men- 
tion but typical examples of American soldiery. In the Union Army one 
of the conspicuous figures is William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891). 
He first served in the Seminole War; then resigned from the army and en- 
tered first mercantile and then professional life. He re-entered the army 
at the beginning of the Civil War and was present at the first battle of 
Bull Run. When Grant was made commander-in-chief, Sherman was 
given the command of the chief armies in the West. Sherman carried out 
Grant's strategical plan to destroy the enemy's prestige by marching 
through its country and destroying the supplies sent to the Southern armies 
in the famous march through Georgia. The credit for Lee's capitulation 
at Appomattox is clearly due first and foremost to Grant. But the chief 
subordinate factor in that victory was the use of cavalry in the form of a 
massed division of mounted infantry and its brilliant leading by Philip 
Sheridan. The march of his corps from Petersburg to Appomattox is a 
great military object lesson. In no war has there been observed a better 
strategical and tactical use of mounted men. 

A virile, magnetic figure in the Army of the Confederacy was that of 
Stonewall Jackson. He has been likened to Cromwell. Like Cromwell, 
he had daring; he was swift in execution, decisive in crisis. He is best 
characterized by one incident of the first battle of Bull Run. General Bee 
galloped toward him shouting: 'They are beating us back." Not a 
muscle on Jackson's face moved. His thin lips parted, and he simply 
answered: "Then we will give them the bayonet." And Bee, riding 
back toward his routed soldiers, called out to them: 'Look! There is 
Jackson standing like a stone wall." The men took up the cry and pressed 
forward. Fate willed it that at Chancellorsville, Stonewall Jackson, 
through a fatal error, should be shot in the very instant of victory by the 
soldiers who idolized him. He died a few days later, having received 

399 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

from Lee a letter which contained that sentence of heroic grandeur and 
simplicity: "Could I have directed the course of events, I should have 
chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead." 

The last Confederate general to capitulate was Joseph Eggleston 
Johnston. His army surrendered to Sherman and was disbanded. It 
was his duty to act as pallbearer at the funeral of Grant; the man who 
twenty-two years before at Vicksburg, had declared that Johnston was 
the only soldier he feared on the Southern side. Johnston rendered the 
same homage to his great opponent Sherman and in the performance of 
that duty caught a chill which a few weeks later met with a fatal result. 

The Warrior. Let us pledge this parting toast to him: 

"Soldier, rest. Thy warfare o'er. 
Dream of fighting fields no more; 
Sleep the sleep that knows no breaking. 
Morn of toil, nor night of waking." 

— Scott. 

And with Bayard Taylor let us give due reverence : 

"Sleep soldiers. Still in honored rest 
Your truth and valor wearing : 
The bravest are the tenderest, — 
The loving are the daring." 



400 



PART V CHAPTER XV 

GREAT AMERICAN JURISTS 



"The foundations of Justice arc that no one shall suffer wrong; then, 
that the public good be promoted." 

— Cicero. 



JUSTICE — here we have the scales that weigh the policies that regu- 
late civil society. And any deviation from it, under any circum- 
stances, throws human society into chaos. "Justice," as Addison 
says, "discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always therefore 
represented as blind" — blind to everything but justice. And justice itself 
must find its medium for expression in law, which again must be founded 
on reason. 

"Reason," said Coke in his "Institutes," "is the life of the law; nay 
the common law itself is nothing else but reason." Froude, in his "Short 
Studies on Great Subjects," remarks that "just laws are no restraint upon 
the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law 
will interfere with," adding in another essay that "our human laws are but 
the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can 
read them." 

The American Nation stands before the world as an attempt to 
gather all the races of the earth into one family group pledged to an effort 
to establish not exact but comparative justice, or as nearly so as human 
imperfections will allow. It is a noble undertaking that will require 
many epochs of experimentation to establish the principle on a permanent 
working basis, and will require constant readjustment to conform with 
the ever-changing needs of the people in their social and economic evo- 
lution. 

Law, therefore, other than its Mosaic foundations, cannot remain 
static; it is a growth, an evolution, subject to all the transformations and 
all the frailties of the human race. Thus we have our courts of law as 
the public tribunals in which the people may gather to protect their lives 
and their rights, to arrange an equitable distribution of property, and to 
maintain the equilibrium of society. These courts prove openly to the 
world the measure of our ability or inability to control that subtle power 
which we call Justice. Courts of law should be neither places of severe 
discipline nor chambers which cast fear upon society, but rather houses of 
refuge for the oppressed. "No government is safe until it be fortified 

401 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

by good will," said Nepos, while Terence, another Latin writer, truly re- 
marked: "It is a grcciL error, in my opinion, to believe that a government 
is more firm or assured, when it is supported by force, than when founded 
on affection." 

There are more than thirty thousand lawyers practising before the 
courts of the United States to-day. Billions of dollars have been ex- 
pended to build courthouses. The judicial system in operation has been 
explained in another chapter, and it is possible here only to consider a few 
of the strong characters that have given their lives to the upbuilding of 
this system of jurisprudence in America. Many men who distinguished 
themselves at the bar or on the bench were also eminent in the public 
service. We shall therefore confine our remarks to those who have shone 
.forth more brilliantly in the legal profession than in any of their other 
activities. 

The first eminent American jurist was John Marshall (1775-1835). 
Bo famous did he become as a Chief Justice that few people know that he 
was also a soldier, an envoy, a historian, and a statesman. He became of 
age two months after the Declaration of Independence was signed and en- 
listed in the American Revolution. He fought in two of the most impor- 
tant engagements in the campaign of 1779. Soon afterward he began to 
study law, and, after the surrender of Cornwallis in 1781, gained reputation 
as a brilliant young barrister in his native Virginia. Marshall did more 
than any one else, except Madison, to induce Virginia to adopt the Federal 
Constitution. At the request of George Washington, he ran for Con- 
gress and was elected in 1799. A year later, he was appointed Secretarj^ 
of State and rendered great service to the nation. For thirty years, he 
was the respected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
He Interpreted the Constitution in the most liberal spirit and discharged 
his heavy duties with a moral courage that won respect and confidence 
from every one who knew him. 

The rulings and arguments of Marshall were of the greatest Impor- 
tance to the courts, for the machinery of the new government was still 
working experimentally, and the Constitution was only vaguely under- 
stood by the majority of the lawyers. Judge Story said of Marshall: 
"If all his other judicial arguments were taken away from us, his clear 
exposition of constitutional law would have sufficed to make his name live 
forever." Some of the best-known cases that came before him which have 
since served as precedents were Peck vs. Fletcher, when an act of the State 
of Georgia was declared void; McCuUoch vs. the State of Maryland, 
when the court decided that Congress had the power to charter a national 
bank with branches in all the States and that such banks could not be taxed 

402 




PAMOLts OKAiluN.s IN AMERICAN HISTORY— This painting by Rothermol shows Patrick Henry 

delivering his celebrated speech before the Housi- of Burgesses in Virginia in ITtJ.j — The 

aristocratic r.urgesses were astounded as the young statesman denounced the 

crown and proclaimed the principles of liberty to the American people — 

The cry of "Treason !" rose from all parts of the house — Henry 

paused a moment and then thuudered : "Caesar had his 

Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and 

George the Third may profit by these 

examples. If that be treason, 

make the most of it !" 




GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY— This pnlntins bv Carpontor presents Lincoln surrounded hv bis 
net, at the tune of the signing of the Emaneipation Prorhimation. This Prochimation exterminated 
slavery from the Southern States forever — It was signed on September •22, 1S62. 




SKJXING TITE EM.SNCirATION PR0rLA>rATIOX— This rn.cliiinatioii, l.y a siiij;lo stroke, struck the chains of 
bondage from more tlian three million hiimar heinss — It (lestroyed the institution of slavery 
that had been drafted into tlic American nation since its foundation. 



i 



GREAT AMERICAN JURISTS 

by State authority. Aaron Burr's trial for high treason also came before 
him, and on many points the Chief Justice boldly stood at variance with 
the most important men of the day. 

The great diplomatic negotiations which took place after the Amer- 
ican Revolution will always be associated with the name of William Pinck- 
ney, one of the leading lawyers of his day (1764-1822). He was se- 
lected by Washington as one of the commissioners to England mentioned 
in Jay's treaty. For eight years he stayed in London and performed his 
arduous duties with great skill. On his return home he became Attorney- 
General of Maryland, but went back to London to settle the delicate ques- 
tion of England's right to seize English seamen on board of American 
vessels. He returned in 1811 and accepted the office of Attorney-General 
of the United States. 

The name of Kent holds an eminent position in American law. 
James Kent (1763-1847) was a New York man educated at Yale. At 
an early age he became Judge of the Supreme Court of New York State, 
Master in Chancery, and Recorder of the City of New York. With Judge 
Ratcliffe, he revised the legal Code of New York. He was appointed 
Chief Justice of the State, and later Columbia appointed him Professor 
of Law and Chancellor. His fame rests mostly upon his lectures, which 
he printed in book form under the title of "Commentaries on American 
Law" and which have become classics for every member of the bar. 

Few jurists have enjoyed the respect that has been accorded to Joseph 
Story, a classmate of the great preacher Channing, a pupil of Samuel 
Sewall and Judge Putnam. His name became prominent for the first 
time in the course of the debate relative to the Embargo Act. Though a 
Democrat and a faithful follower of Jefferson, he separated himself from 
his leader when the question arose of the repeal of that act. When Madi- 
son took Jefferson's place as President, he appointed Story as Chief Justice 
of the United States. Story was only thirty-two then, and he filled that 
responsible position with ability for thirty-four years. He helped to 
revise the Constitution of Massachusetts, and taught law at Harvard Col- 
lege. His lectures covered a very wide range of subjects; laws of nations, 
laws of the sea and of commerce, federal equity, constitutional law, etc. 
His opinions on these various topics generally agreed with those held by 
Chief Justice Marshall. Story's written works make over sixty volumes; 
not only do they contain an invaluable treasure of information but their 
clarity of style makes them documents of no mean importance in American 
letters. 

A great statesman as well as a jurist was Rufus Choate (1799-1858). 
His splendid legal talent made him the peer of the greatest lawyers in 

407 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

history. It has been said, that whether he addressed a jury of twelve men 
or a crowded audience, he seemed to bend men's minds to his own will, 
for no one had a better knowledge of psychology and of the means to make 
the most effective appeal to human intelligence and emotion. While 
arousing his audience to the highest pitch of excitement, he remained per- 
fectly cool and self-controlled. Later, he held the Senate under his 
mighty power as he had the court-rooms. His addresses on the McLeod 
case, the Fiscal Bank Bill, Oregon, the Tariff, the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute, mark an epoch in the proceedings of the Senate, although he remained 
a member of that body but a single year. 

Those were days of epoch-making decisions. There was a young 
student under Judge Story in the Harvard Law School, who afterward 
became his most intimate and faithful friend. It was Charles Sumner 
(1811-1874), who studied so diligently that he was admitted to the bar 
at the age of twenty-three. Those, too, were the days when men like 
Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, the Tappan brothers, Salmon P. Chase, 
and others, were devoting their energies to abolitionist propaganda, and 
the country was becoming deeply divided on the subject of slavery. It 
was impossible for an intelligent man to remain neutral on that question. 
Sumner's feelings were with the abolitionists, and before long he had be- 
come well-known as their exponent. His Fourth of July Oration, de- 
livered in Boston in 1845, was reprinted throughout the country. It 
thrilled the American people with the spirit of liberty. 

In the Senate, Sumner opposed courageously the Fugitive Slave Bill, 
which made it lawful for United States officers to arrest runaway slaves 
found in the Northern States, and he was one of the leading debaters on 
the famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill. It was after a splendid address in 
favor of admitting Kansas into the Union, in which he showed the grow- 
ing power of slavery, that he was attacked by an ardent opponent in Con- 
gress and so severely injured that for a number of years he could not enter 
into active public life. 

Near the close of Buchanan's term, Sumner returned to the Senate 
and pronounced his famous speech on "Slavery." He worked for Lincoln 
in his presidential campaign, and, although the two did not agree on the 
method of solving the slavery question, they were very warm friends. 
Sumner was Lincoln's constant adviser in legal and public matters and 
was known as a minister outside the cabinet. Sumner made a speech in 
1869 that has remained historic — it was a brilliant argument upon the 
Alabama Claims, that is, the claims of the United States upon Great 
Britain for the damage done by the Alabama and other Confederate priva- 
teers allowed to escape to sea. His last important act was to press his Bill 

408 



GREAT AMERICAN JURISTS 

of Rights, by which the law was made the same for colored and white peo- 
ple in every State of the Union. 

Sumner was a man of extraordinary will-power and influence. There 
was perhaps no one in the Senate, during the twenty years he was a mem- 
ber of that body, who could wield so strong an influence on the American 
people. Favor or popularity did not count with him, but he often suc- 
ceeded in creating a favorable feeling about certain unpopular causes by 
the honesty and the ardor with which he championed them. This was 
plainly the case in regard to the Confederates, Mason and Slidell, who had 
been taken off a British vessel during the war ; in regard to the act of free- 
ing the slaves, which he urged Lincoln to perform after Antietam; and 
upon the San Domingo question, when he opposed the idea of making that 
island a part of the United States. 

The front ranks of the legal profession included William Maxwell 
Evarts (1818-1901), educated at Yale and later at the Harvard Law 
School. He became Federal District Attorney at thirty-three years of 
age. When President Johnson was impeached, Evarts was his chief coun- 
sel. Soon after that great question was settled, he was appointed Attor- 
ney-General of the United States. Four years later, he was again con- 
nected with a famous case. This was the affair known as the Alabama 
Claims on which Sumner delivered his famous address. When at last a 
convention was agreed upon to effect a settlement, Evarts acted as chief 
counsel for the United States. His conduct of the case was brilliant, 
and our case was won with credit to the republic and to himself. He 
appeared as a national figure in the presidential election dispute, when 
the whole country was in doubt as to whether Tilden or Hayes had re- 
ceived the greater number of ballots. To decide the matter an electoral 
commission met to hear the claims of both candidates. Hayes was repre- 
sented in the controversy by Evarts, who secured a decision in favor of his 
client and of the Republican Party. Evarts was a member of the Inter- 
national Monetary Congress in Paris, in 1881, and was elected Senator 
to the United States from New York in 1885. 

So it has been that America always has had, and has to-day, many 
of the ablest jurists in the whole annals of human law. The record is 
too long and the fact too well established for further discussion in these 
pages. We will dismiss the subject with a statement of the duties of a 
judge as defined by Socrates: "Four things belong to a judge," he said, 
"to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide 
impartially." The greatest warning of all to the American people are the 
words of the Earl of Chatham in the case of Wilkes : "Where law ends, 
tvranny begins." 

409 



PART V CHAPTER XVI 



GREAT AMERICAN FINANCIERS 



"Money was made not to command our will, 
But all our lawful pleasures to fulfill," 
— Cowley. 



1 



■^HE building of a nation requires four dynamic forces — the do- 
main on which to build ; the plan with which to build ; the men 
who are to build; and the money or resources to finance the 
three preceding factors. The importance of the last-named 
must not be either under- or over-estimated. It is the motive power be- 
hind men and ideas, the propelling force behind progress, the economic 
momentum behind all civilization. 

"The almighty dollar" is an American phrase, used first by Wash- 
ington Irving. And it is quite true that the American people have placed 
a high standard on the creation of wealth, but it must also be remem- 
bered that the ambition for riches is as old as the human race; that men 
and nations fought and intrigued and went to decay in the seeking of 
wealth long before the American continent was known to exist. It was 
in fact the Old World's greed for gold that created the impulse which re- 
sulted in the discovery of America and which led to the founding of nearly 
all the settlements (except the Pilgrim, Quaker, and Jesuit foundations) 
on the Western Hemisphere. 

Ovid in the days of ancient Rome declared: "Money brings office; 
money gains friends; everywhere the poor man is down," and spoke of 
"the ungovernable passion for wealth." Horace remarked: "All power- 
ful money gives birth and beauty," while Sallust exclaimed: "Few set a 
higher value on good faith than on money." In the days of glory 
in England — the Elizabethan days — wealth was the mightiest power. 
Shakespeare, in his "Merry Wives of Windsor," proclaims: "Money is 
a good soldier, sir, and will on I" Milton, in his "Paradise Regained," 
pays this tribute to the power of money: "Money brings honor, friends, 
conquest, and realms." Pope exclaims in his moralizations : "Get Place 
and Wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get Wealth and 
Place." Ben Jonson, in his characterization of the times, declares : "Get 
money ; still get money, boys ; no matter by what means." While Byron 
remarks that "ready money is Aladdin's lamp." 

Thus, let it be known that the American people did not invent wealth, 

410 




WIIKUK Till-; <;111;AT AMICUUAN WAKIUOKS auk TUAIM.K — (Thiiip-.^ at Wost Point on tbe 
Hudson Uivcr — Tliis Institution was founded in 18U1' — Appointments are made by tHe 
i'resident — Nearly all the great eommanders in the American wars have been graduated » 
from this institution — It has contributed many eminent engineers and dis- 
tinguished statesmen — The institution is limited to (SCiS cadets. 




WFIERK THE (JKEAT AMERICAN NAVAL OFFICERS ARE TRAINEI> — Here we look upon 

tbe Midshipnion at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Maryland — This 

institntion was established in l<S4r) — It is hero that the sea Hfrhters are made 

who have fought so gallantly in the American wars — Their skill and 

bravery has given them first position. 



GREAT AMERICAN FINANCIERS 

but created it out of their own genius and the bounties of nature. It 
is neither the standard of attainment nor the goal of ambition in America, 
but merely the medium for expressing ideas, realizing higher ideals — the 
machinery for the operation of an economic system that brings to all the 
people the full measure of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

The financing of the American republic has been a heroic task — the 
banker has been of importance equal to that of the soldier. The untold 
wealth of the continent — its coal, iron, oil, gold, silver, copper — would 
still be slumbering in the earth were it not for the financial organization 
necessary to bring them to utility. The world-revolutionizing inventions 
— electricity, the telephone, telegraph, railroading, steamshipping — could 
not have come into existence without the finances with which to develop 
them. Labor and capital are brothers inseparable — each is impotent with- 
out the other ; it is men first — and then money that forges the way for civ- 
ilization. 

The United States has achieved the stupendous feat of growing 
from a wilderness into the richest nation in the world in the brief span of 
one hundred and twenty-five years. It is a race of great financiers who 
have constructed our banking credit and have built our canals, and rail- 
ways, opened our mines, developed our agriculture, established our in- 
dustries, and financed our wars. Some of these men were heroes, some 
of them were romantic figures, some of them were saviors of the Govern- 
ment itself, some of them were great statesmen, and without their com- 
bined genius for making and using wealth, this continent never could have 
been conquered from nature. No people in the world owe so much to the 
men who know how to accumulate and use wealth wisely as the people of 
the United States owe to many of their great financiers. 

We can speak of but a few of the best-known "kings of finance" in 
this brief chapter. The first is Robert Morris ( 1734-1806), the "financier 
of the American Revolution." At the outbreak of the war there were 
only 3,000,000 people in the colonies, and all of them together did not 
possess as much wealth as five rich men in the United States to-day. Yet 
this daring little group of liberty-loving people, separated into widely 
detached localities and without an effective, organic national government, 
undertook to throw off the yoke of the strongest nation in the world. 
They could not borrow a dollar abroad, for their so-called Congress had 
no power to tax them, and even the power of the individual colonies to tax 
their people was very limited. 

In the darkest hour of the American Revolution, just after the battle 
of Trenton, even the great Washington himself almost despaired. He 
wrote to Robert Morris, who had been appointed by Congress Super- 

413 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

intendent of Finance, to raise immediately $50,000 in gold and silver to 
pay the troops, warning him that failure would mean that a large number 
would refuse to re-enlist. They would not accept the worthless paper 
money. Morris knew the case was desperate. He was a prosperous 
merchant and a man of wealth — one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence and a great leader in the business world. Morris spent the 
whole night calling on his friends and begging them to contribute. At 
daylight he had raised the money that did a greater service to humanity 
perhaps than the expenditure of any other $50,000 had ever accomplished. 
The army was saved. From that time on to 1784, the finances of the 
country were in Morris' absolute control. And the man who had saved 
the country was made a pauper by unfortunate land speculations and died 
in a debtor's prison. 

The second great financier of historical importance is Alexander Ham- 
ilton (1757-1804), who organized our national financial plan. We have 
made seventeen amendments to the Constitution of the United States 
since it was ratified, and we have made hundreds of laws modifying its 
workings, but the vast machinery by which the revenues of our Govern- 
ment are collected and disbursed is still that which was devised and set 
in motion by Hamilton — the first Secretary of the Treasury. It was a 
tremendous undertaking, the work of a fertile and inventive mind, to or- 
ganize a machinery so effective and yet so elastic that it would run for 
more than a century and work for a 100,000,000 people as it had done 
for less than 5,000,000. 

The Department of the Treasury, the whole financial system of the 
Government with its banking and credit, was the creation of Hamilton. 
It has been called the least of Hamilton's splendid work for the young 
republic, and yet it is a monumental achievement for the career of any 
man. When the United States had won its independence and had adopted 
the Constitution, chiefly under the leadership of Hamilton, almost every 
State was in a condition of fiscal debouch. Many thousands of dollars of 
worthless paper money were issued to bolster up the depreciated currency. 
Public and private bankruptcy prevailed, and industrial distress stalked 
through the land. Any sort of a financial system that would bring order 
out of chaos, stabilize financial transactions, and give integrity to public 
debts, would be an act of supreme statesmanship. Without this confidence 
and stability the republic would perish. 

It was at the hour of this crisis that Hamilton introduced his first 
report on the public credit. His plan was to have the National Govern- 
ment assume the responsibility for all public debts. These public debts, 
foreign, national, and State contracted in the war, amounted to about 

414 



GREAT AMERICAN FINANCIERS 

$80,000,000. This whole debt was to be met by a system of taxation, 
the revenues of which were to come partly from a tariff on imports and 
partly from excise. Hamilton's second plan was for the establishing of 
a National Bank. It was this bank of which Daniel Webster spoke, 
when he said: "He (Hamilton) smote the rock of national resources, 
and abundant streams of revenues gushed forth; he touched the corpse of 
public credit, and it sprang to its feet." 

Hamilton was born on the little island of Nevis in the West Indies 
and was of dubious parentage. When a lad of thirteen, while employed 
in a mercantile house, he wrote such a graphic description of a hurricane 
that swept the island, that his friends decided to send him to America to 
be educated. He gradually emerged from obscurity, becoming an officer 
on Washington's staff, a distinguished lawyer, a partner in litigation of 
his future rn^rtal enemy, Aaron Burr, one of the leading spirits in fram- 
ing the Constitution and getting it adopted, culminating his career as 
Washington's Secretary of the Treasury — then to be slain by Burr in a 
duel. Great as was Hamilton's work, he was never honored as was his 
great rival, Thomas Jefferson, and there is as yet no statue on the vacant 
plaza in front of the Treasury building of the first and greatest Secretary 
of the Treasury. 

The third great financial problem in this country came with the Civil 
War. Before that date the word "billion" was never heard even in Wall 
Street. A billion dollars had been an unthinkable sum of money for 
even the Government to borrow or to owe, but with the war the Govern- 
ment had to borrow over $2,000,000,000 to restore the Union. As Wash- 
ington had found in Hamilton the man to construct the financial founda- 
tion of the Government, so Lincoln was to find in Salmon P. Chase 
(1808-1873) the man to construct and operate the financial machinery to 
carry on the Civil War. When Chase came into the Treasury Department, 
a gigantic task lay before him. Public credit was at a low ebb. Not 
only had the Southern States, with their sources of governmental revenue, 
withdrawn from the Union, but there was a powerful financial party in 
the North which denied the Government the right to coerce the South. 

Congress had been so disorganized by factional fights that it had 
been impossible to enact the requisite financial legislation. But Chase, 
under the circumstances, had a very clear conception of what to do and 
how to do it. He knew how to make the public understand financial 
questions. He launched his system of National Banks designed to super- 
sede the banks organized under State laws and then remove the depend- 
ence of the Government upon such banks. The circulating notes of these 
National Banks, secured both by private capital and Government bonds, 

415 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

furnished a sound and uniform currency. As soon as he succeeded in 
passing his scheme through Congress, the Government was in a position to 
obtain all the money that it needed. 

The nation then needed only one or more great bankers to promote 
and exploit its borrowing capacity to the full extent of the war's de- 
mands. That banker was found in the person of Jay Cooke, of the firm 
of Jay Cooke & Co., Philadelphia. Cooke had made a great reputation 
and much money in financing railroads, from 1858 to 1861, such as the 
Missouri Pacific and other Western roads. He had a control of the 
money market almost as complete as J. Pierpont Morgan had forty-five 
years later. Cooke was born at Sandusky, Ohio, and he and the secretary 
were old friends. He was now made the principal financial agent of 
the Government, negotiating three loans of $970,000,000, $200,000,000 
and $830,000,000, in all $2,000,000,000, or the bulk of the money bor- 
rowed to finance the war. He was also a great financial power after the 
war in the building of the continental railways. It was the failure of his 
house, in 1873, due to too heavy investment in Northern Pacific Railway 
securities, that caused a financial panic. 

Among the potent financial figures in America during the Nineteenth 
Century were many vigorous men. There was Stephen Gerard, America's 
first great merchant prince, in Philadelphia, in the first half of the Nine- 
teenth Century. There was John Jacob Astor, whose investment of his 
$20,000,000 from the fur trade in New York real estate, had an im- 
portant economic effect — through it more than sixty per cent, of the peo- 
ple became renters and that condition has increased with the years. As- 
tor's great wealth did much to develop New York. Then there is 
Cornelius Vanderbilt's $75,000,000 to develop the coastwise trade and 
the railroads of New York. Vanderbilt was one of the great builders 
of the nation. At his death he owned more than twenty ocean-going 
steamers. The call of his ships at the Isthmus of Panama showed De 
Lesseps what a great trade-route a canal there would at once become. 
He was not only a pioneer railroad builder but one of the very first to 
begin the consolidation of railroad lines which had grown to such extent 
and power that forty years later the Government found it expedient to 
step in and dissolve them. Probably no two men ever had a clearer 
vision of what New York was destined to become than the first Astor and 
the first Vanderbilt. Certainly no two men did more to determine that 
destiny. 

Jay Gould — a master of organization — became one of the leading 
figures in the financial world in the first decade after the war, when the 
country began its great railroad development. In those days, Wall Street 

416 




OUR COl'M'KY- AND ITS DEFENDERS— Gallant seanieu upon whom wo depend for the 

safety of our national existence — ^The United States expends more than !t!4(),000,000 a 

year to (irovide for the welfare and comfort of the officers and enlisted men. 




BATTLESHirs OF THE AMERICAN NAVY — These ships are maintained wholly for the purpose 
of protecting our country against injustice or invasion — The American Navy now ranks • 

third as a sea power — It has the longest coast line of any nation to defend. 



GREAT AMERICAN FINANCIERS 

was a battle ground of men. Gould manipulated the stock market with 
the hand of a wizard. He had only to whisper or to nod his head to pre- 
cipitate a bear market. He secured control of the Erie Railroad in 1868, 
and soon possessed a controlling interest in the Union Pacific, the Missouri 
Pacific, the Wabash, the Texas Pacific, the St. Louis and Northern, and 
the St. Louis and San Francisco. The control of these great systems 
enabled him to consolidate all the competing telegraph-lines into the West- 
ern Union in 1881. 

Russell Sage — a man of remarkable financial insight — was Jay 
Gould's partner in many of his railroad properties and in the Western 
Union Telegraph Company. Sage's great role in finance was that of 
money lender. He always had at his disposal more cash for other men's 
enterprises and dreams than any other financier in the country. Sage pos- 
sessed much wisdom in advising borrowers how to invest the money that 
he loaned them. In this way, his service to the railroad development 
of the country was invaluable. Perhaps no man ever knew as much about 
Wall Street and the market as did Sage. 

The names of Harrim.an, Morgan, and Hill are intimately associated 
with the financing of the development of the country. Harriman began 
as stock broker and devoted himself to the study of railroading. When 
the Union Pacific was bankrupt, he prevailed upon Kuehn and Loeb to 
allow him to reorganize it with their help. He merged this road with 
the Chicago and Northwestern. Under Harriman's management, the 
Union Pacific became prosperous; credit was obtained to acquire the 
Oregon Short Line and the Oregon Railways and Navigation Company. 
The controlling interest in the Southern Pacific was turned over to the 
Oregon Short Line. This gave Harriman a central direct line to the Pa- 
cific. He waged many memorable financial fights for the control of prop- 
erties. After the panic of 1907, Harriman helped to develop the Erie 
Railroad, turned the Central of Georgia over to the Illinois Central, 
and became a director of the New York Central. He also established 
close traffic connections between the Union Pacific and Kansas City South- 
ern. A week before his death, he had made public plans for new rail- 
road construction and improvements involving an expenditure of over 
$300,000,000. He was in control of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- 
pany, the Portland and Asiatic Steamship Company, and the Wells Fargo 
Express. 

A great movement for the consolidation of transportation systems, 
industries, public utilities, etc., set in about 1898. There appeared as the 
master-mind of this group of financiers — J. Pierpont Morgan. His career 
began early in the Civil War, and by 1902 he had attained in the finan- 

419 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

cial world a power unequalled at any time by any man of affairs. 
There is no positive record of the properties he held but it has been esti- 
mated that he was "identified with" at least sixty railroads. His financial 
control extended over ten billion dollars. The achievement of Morgan's 
life was the organization of the United States Steel Corporation. 

Morgan was a powerful influence in our national affairs. During 
the panic of 1907, it was Morgan who prevented the rate of interest 
from reaching exaggerated figures by depositing very large sums with the 
various banks that were most seriously pressed for cash. During this panic 
the Steel Trust bought from the Trust Company of America all its stock 
of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company as collateral for loans, and thus 
eliminated its only competitor in this country. 

The last of this generation of great financiers is James J. Hill — 
the master-builder of the Northwest. He was born in Guelph, Canada, 
1838, went to Minnesota in 1856. His fortune began when he and a 
group of other promoters bought the property of the bankrupt Saint Paul 
and Pacific Railroad Company in 1878. Hill paid $6,780,000 for all 
the property which had been mortgaged for over $28,000,000. The sale 
was not made for cash, but Hill was allowed to turn in as payment re- 
ceiver's debentures and bonds. Hill secured more franchises, built exten- 
sions, and organized the Great Northern Railway. Then by forcing the 
application of the 1857 land grant act, he secured valuable land in Da- 
kota. He owned immense ore desposits in Minnesota and leased them to 
the Steel Corporation on a royalty basis for 25 years, the payments amount- 
ing to tens of millions of dollars. 

There are many other notable names that should be added to this 
list of master-builders, such as Rockefeller and his organization of the oil 
fields ; Spreckles, who opened the market for Hawaiian sugar to the United 
States; Havemeyer, who organized the sugar industries; Arbuckle, who 
organized the coffee markets; Hearst, who developed the gold and silver 
mines of the West; Plant, who developed Florida and Cuba to com- 
merce — and a list of thousands of other men of affairs whose financial 
genius forged new roads for progress on the American continent. It is 
not possible here to make economic deductions into the effect of the genius 
of these men on American civilization, but it is sufficient to state that 
finance is the power behind progress. It develops many economic prob- 
lems that require constant readjustment to restrain the power of finance 
from becoming despotic; it has its dangers and its incalculable benefits to 
civilization, but under control it is the genius that has not only developed 
this nation, but is reconstructing the world. 

420 



PART V CHAPTER XVII 

GREAT AMERICAN AUTHORS 



"Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which 
are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the pos- 
terity of those who are yet unborn." — Addison. 



BOOKS — not nations — are the world's greatest democracies. The 
republic of letters knows neither monarch nor serf. The poor 
man becomes rich in his knowledge of books — the rich man be- 
comes poor in his lack of knowledge of books — the whole world 
meets on common ground in the printed pages of literature. "All that 
mankind has done, thought, fained or been," says Carlyle, "is lying as in 
magic preservation in the pages of books. They are the chosen possession 
of men." 

"God be thanked for books," said Channing In his essay on "self- 
culture." "Books are the true levelers. They give to all, who will faith- 
fully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and noblest of 
our race. No matter how poor I am, no matter though the prosperous of 
my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the sacred writers 
will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my 
threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare, to open to me the 
worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin 
to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intel- 
lectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man though excluded 
from what is called the best society, in the place where I live. ... It is 
chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and 
these invaluable means of communication are within reach of all. In the 
best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and 
pour their souls into ours." 

Here in America we have all the material for great literature. The 
drama of human life moves rapidly; human emotions are unloosed on a 
vast stage of action ; the ambitions and loves of men, the tragedies and com- 
medies of existence are all enacted in everyday American life. The nerv- 
ous energy is here; the physical power, the spiritual force. We have not 
yet passed through our "Elizabethan Age" but we have already given to 
the world some of its noblest thoughts. For some 200 years, from 1607 to 
1800, America followed the English writing in prose or poetry. It was in 
theology that she first demonstrated strength and power. And then sud- 

421 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

denly, within a few years, she gave to the world several men of genius, 
genuinely American, whose every word bore the unmistakable stamp of the 
New World. 

American literature, as distinguished from English literature, begins 
with Irving's books. As an essayist, he was still a follower of the English 
tradition. But in his legends of the Hudson and his Knickerbocker history 
we find that which is not only rich of the soil but which was at the time 
absolutely new in literature. The Knickerbocker is the source of American 
humor. There Irving gave us imaginary histories based upon the most 
careful and inimitable satire of real heroic achievements. His Legends 
were even more original. Not only were the characters and the romance 
purely American but they had a flavor belonging solely to the life of this 
continent. Irving earned fame not only in his own country but beyond the 
seas. Then came Fenimore Cooper, his junior by about six years. Cooper 
not only used American material, but material which had never been used 
before by any writer. In his characteristic studies of the aborigines and 
their sturdy enemies, the first pioneers, the American wilderness, lakes, 
mountains, prairies, the vast savagery of the new continent began to live in 
literature as essential parts of the new creation. There is about his books 
such a genuine note of virgin life that they carry conviction wherever they 
happen to be read, be it in London or Paris — in Persia or in any part of the 
world where men appreciate primitive passions. 

The first world-renowned master, however, is Edgar Allan Poe (1809- 
1849), the Ishmael of American letters. It has been said that he was not 
typical of America, but his fate at least was typical of the fate of any 
daring poet in his days. Nowhere else would he have evolved such a deep 
psychology of life by the very loneliness to which his strange genius doomed 
him. He had the sensitiveness of genius, the pride of a gentleman, and yet 
he was compelled to accept charity from a world in which there was no 
place for a poet unless he could be a teacher like Longfellow or could con- 
duct a newspaper as did Bryant. Wandering from town to town, mis- 
understood of all, battling with starvation, watching the woman whom he 
idolized die without food and clothing, he might have been in the Old 
World one more grotesque figure added to the gallery of Bohemians. In 
the rough, indifferent New World he was a pathetic and tragic figure. 
In one respect he was thoroughly, typically American. America's most sig- 
nificant contribution to the world's literature is the short story. Whatever 
honor is due to us on that account should be offered to Poe, who much more 
than Irving carried that literary genre to the highest degree of perfection. 

America's household poet is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807- 
1882), the most widely known and quoted of American authors. While 

422 




GI\NT FORESTS OP CALIFORNIA — These gigantic trees along the Yosoinito A alley are the largest 
to be found on the earth— This is one of the natural curiosities of America, with its 
canyon, cascades and famous trees, 



GREAT AMERICAN AUTHORS 

he was still living the school children began to celebrate his birthday and 
there are few schools in this country where the 27th of February passes 
without some commemoration of the poet's services to letters. Longfellow 
reflects not the froth and surface agitation of life, but its serene flow and its 
soulful undercurrents. His first book appeared in 1839 ^^ ^^^ beginning 
of the turmoil about slavery; in his last volume in 1882 the wounds of the 
conflict were healed. In the midst of our greatest political strife, Long- 
fellow sang the legends that united North and South in the pride of a 
common country. "Evangeline," "The Courtship of Miles Standish," 
"Hiawatha," are full of understanding and sympathy for the people of all 
races and all times. Longfellow avoided the cold impassibility of Bryant 
and the morbidity of Poe. In spite of his scholarly interests and associates, 
of his long training as a teacher of literature, he took his subjects near at 
hand, indifferent to the disparaging criticism that he was the "poet of the 
commonplace." By showing the poetic side of American history, he has 
opened a mine of literary material out of which other poets were to bring 
greater treasures. 

Perhaps the most striking figure America has given to the world of 
letters is Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The difficulty of charac- 
terizing him in a short sketch is suggested by the titles which his admirers 
gave him. To some he was the western Buddha, to others the Yankee 
Shelley, to others the epitome of Puritan idealism and independence. 
George Eliot spoke of him as "the first man I have ever seen." All his life 
long, he was a preacher of high ideals. The nobility of his life gave force 
to every word which he uttered. As lecturer, poet and essayist, his greatest 
service was to stimulate thought without ever arousing his readers' or his 
hearers' antagonism. A clergyman, he disdained theology and church his- 
tory; a naturalist, he never studied science; a writer on art and literature — 
in everything he relied on intuition. What interested him most in life was 
individual effort and accomplishment. His prestige was due to his man- 
hood — the fact that he was such a splendid individual, whose absolute 
independence might have led him into dangerous paths had he not been 
always saved from error by his wonderful mental and moral integrity. 

Another powerful individualist, whose genius Emerson was the first to 
recognize, was Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Printer, teacher, carpenter, 
idler, reporter, editor, Whitman led a picturesque life. In his 36th year, 
he published his "Leaves of Grass." This book has been acclaimed by all 
the foreign critics as the highest form of original literary art ever written 
in the New World — a poet typical of the American continent. American 
critics, on the other hand, are divided in their opinion of that work. They 
are astounded by his brutality, by his vigor, which cares little for what is 

425 



AMERICA; THE LAND WE LOVE 

generally called delicacy of expression. It is contended by his devotees 
that Whitman is America's greatest poet, the true bard of Democracy. 
They point out that, in contrast to all the other poets of this land, he alone 
has created entirely his own rhythm, his own meter, and his own vocabu- 
lary; that he owes nothing to Old World masters and thinkers; that his sub- 
ject always was the power, the greatness, the immensity of his native land; 
that he has felt and expressed more clearly than any other American writer 
the wonderful qualities of the new race which was being created in the 
great "Melting Pot" of the world; that, after the stifling influence of Puri- 
tanism, he had rendered a signal service in singing in the healthy physical 
life of a new continent of nature, unembellished by poetical adornment. 

A man apart in American literature, a solitary genius whose methods 
were so exclusively his own that it is impossible to compare him with any 
other writer, is Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). His style, preten- 
tious but artistic, was always in harmony with his subject. He wrote 
largely of the Puritans from whom he was descended and whose moral 
make-up he reflected in a large measure. His "Scarlet Letter" was the first 
great American novel. This, and his other books, reflected his aloofness 
from his contemporaries, his brooding contemplation of the past. He had 
no literary friendship; he reveals himself very little in his writings. More 
at home with historical figures than with the living people who surrounded 
him, he gave to literature a type which no one had attempted to sketch — 
the Puritan. His creation of that type was very romantic ; he emphasized the 
Puritan's idealism, his superb faith, his constant brooding over the question 
of sin and of expiation. His neglect of contemporary life, his indifference 
to the modern energy make him the classicist among American authors. 

America's great humorist, and one of the most pronounced geniuses of 
his times, was Mark Twain (1835-1910). He was at heart a reformer 
and a hater of shams. In ridiculing real or fancied wrongs, he displays 
an amazing dramatic vigor. His wandering life which took him every- 
where from miners' shacks to millionaires' drawing-rooms gave him a very 
keen insight into human psychology. It is not altogether an exaggeration 
when he tells us that he met on the Mississippi the duplicate of every im- 
portant character in history, biography, and fiction. His "Life on the 
Mississippi" will probably remain his greatest claim to glory. 

There were Prescott (1796-1859), Bancroft, Motley and Parkman, 
and of these we chose Prescott. He had not the monumental form of 
Bancroft, the fire of Motley, nor the intimate touch of Parkman, and he 
was without the humor of Irving. But Prescott is superior to all the former 
in poise of judgment and distinction. His "Conquest of Mexico" is a his- 
torical work, whose literary excellence is without an equal. Prescott 

426 



GREAT AMERICAN AUTHORS 

wrote history with a historical exactness and literary artistry that even 
Greene, and Gibbons, and Froude, and Mommsen do not maintain. Pres- 
cott, like Hawthorne because of his style, has won for himself an immortal 
place in English speech. His books have been translated into all the great 
European languages, his style retains its charm. But only the English 
reader can appreciate the beauty and fitness of the diction, Prescott is 
elegant without being florid, and yet musical and full of vigor. The 
periods and the characters selected by Prescott abound with the romantic; 
and whether we review the fortunes of the patrons (Isabella and Ferdi- 
nand) of Columbus, or follow the banners of Spain to the halls of Monte- 
zuma or to the home of the Incas, we cannot move a step without treading 
on enchanting ground. Yet the author does not strain after picturesque 
effects like Lamartine. And he wrote his three great histories: "Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella," "Philip II," and "The Conquest of Mexico" under 
the great physical infirmity of partial and at times total blindness, 
but there was never a moment that there did not emanate from him a 
gayety of spirit. It was this affliction that diverted him from law to lit- 
erature and gave to the world one of its greatest literary historians. 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was the father of American 
poetry, that is he was the first man in the Western Hemisphere to write 
verse that compared favorably with much of the verse of Wordsworth, 
Keats, Coleridge and Shelley, though in stature it is not claimed that he 
measured up to any one of these. He wrote "Thanatopsis" his greatest 
poem at seventeen. His father, without the son's knowledge, sent this 
poem with others to Willard Phillips, the editor of the North American Re- 
view, then published in Boston. Phillips was so amazed at the great merit 
of the poem (and not knowing who wrote it) that he hurried to Cambridge 
to show it to his associate editors, Richard H. Dana and Edward T. Chan- 
ning. When Dana heard the poem read, he smilingly said: "Oh, Phil- 
lips, you have been imposed upon. No man on this side of the Atlantic is 
capable of writing such verse." His remark at the time was most natural 
for America had produced only three one-poem poets and no more, John 
Howard Payne, the author of "Home, Sweet Home," Francis Scott Key 
with his "Star-Spangled Banner" and Joseph Hopkinson of "Hail, Colum- 
bia" fame and these poems would have been long since forgotten but for the 
music written to them. In Bryant, America entered the Hall of Parnasus 
and took its seat with the gods. But to the present generation of Amer- 
icans, Bryant is an Ossian ghost almost as remote as Homer. He never 
acquired the popularity of Longfellow, though when his "Thanatopsis" and 
"Water-fowl" appeared they were read with eagerness and delight by al- 
most every man, woman and child in New England. "Thanatopsis" is 

427 



AIMERICA: THE LAND WE LUVE 

Puritan New England to the soul, and that is why it is not to-day read in 
America, for the last thing Americans now think of is death, that is death 
as Bryant described it in his sonorous verse. Bryant's mental defect as a 
poet was his lack of emotion. He is too self-controlled for a race of men 
who live in laughter and tears. 

Bret Harte (1839-1902) would still have been a genius and a great 
writer if gold had never been discovered in California, but the man and the 
opportunity met on the Pacific Coast on the heels of the Forty-Niners. 
Harte did not spin out his characters from his own brain like the great 
novelists. Like Kipling in his novel writing he failed, but no writer has 
ever seen with a clearer vision the workings of character and of human 
nature in the men and women about him under unique conditions. There 
was never before and there will probably never again be such a chapter in 
human history as that narrative of the gold fever in California. Had 
there not been a historian of the human heart like Harte on the spot, the 
world of letters would indeed be poorer now. The average man knows not 
what his most intimate friend would do under any and all circumstances, 
but Bret Harte always knew what all whom he met would do and his gift 
to describe each and every character's actions was always both full and 
perennial. Harte had the sentiment of Dickens, though it was not so 
morbidly developed, and the satire of Thackeray, though it was not of such 
rapier-like edge. He scorned hypocrisy, and especially the hypocrisy of 
Puritanism, with an intensity that few artists have ever been able to put 
into words. But it is for Harte's sentiment, his pathos and humor, that 
the world will read him and ever love him. Ages ago an eastern sage said 
he would like to write a book that every one should conceive that he mi^ht 
have written himself, and yet so good that no one else could have written 
the like. Bret Harte is said to have fulfilled this ideal. There is a choice 
of words, a balance of sentences and a rhythm of paragraph that very nearly 
approach perfection in the literary art. In conciseness, in artistic restraint, 
he is declared the equal of Turgenieff, Hawthorne and Newman. Because 
Bret Harte was so essentially an artist in every fibre of his being, he left 
California when society had settled down there and became commonplace. 
The whole country was growing alike and he could find no place that suited 
him but London. His best story, he said, is "Tennessee's Partner." 
"The Idyl of Red Gulch" and "The Rose of Tuolumne" are two of the 
finest pieces of work of the kind in all imaginative literature. And who, 
that has read him, will ever forget "Colonel Starbottle" ? 

Oliver Wendell Holmes ( 1809-1894) was one of the purest American 
types of temperament and mind. To recall him brings back the most gifted 
group of men of letters that have ever appeared in this country. Of this 

428 




IIISTOltU' I'ALISA1>KS ALONC TllK HI I »S().\— 1 livsc nn-ky .hn s i.n,k,.n and laiitasti. 
aDDearance are considered the most picturesque id the world— the walls ol rock rise 
about 500 feet in lieight and extend about fifteen miles along western bank of river. 




LANDMARKS OF AMERICAN LEGENDS— The Hudson Ifivrr .h , upirs nti iinportant place in 

American literature and art— Washington Irving immortalized its charming villages— Poets 

havf lived along its shores— Artists receive inspiration from the magniticent scenery. 





GHEAT AMLRIeA^ AUTHORS— This rare engraving bv Cliappell is entitled "The Literary Partv at the Home 

oi wasmngton Irving ^Irving is seated with kerchief in hand — Facing him, with extended hand, is J. 

Lenimore Cooper. Among the others are many noted authors. 




AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTORS TO WORLD'S LETTERS— Standing at extreme left is IIawthorn(^Seated in 
front of him is Longfellow — ^Standing in centre of group is I'rescott. Seated in front of him is 
Bryant. Under the bust of Shakespeare is Emerson. 




LARGEST RIVER STEAMSHIPS IN THE WORLD — The magnificent steamboats of the Hudson 

River Day Lino accommodate 6,000 passengers on a single voyage — Travelers from all parts 

of the earth make this historic journey — They pass through a beautiful country. 




ALONG THE HIGHLANDS OF THE HUDSON— Here we pass the statily military structures 

crowning the hills at West Point — The river is navigable for 117 miles from the ocean 

— Its whole length is about 300 miles, nearly every foot of which is historic. 



GREAT AMERICAN AUTHORS 

group Dr. Holmes remains the freshest and the most perennial. He is still 
with us in his boundless humanity and sympathy. A learned man he 
was, but he could write pathos with humor in admirable combination and 
controlled by perfect taste and kindliness. He could poke fun at his "Un- 
married Aunt" but no one loves her the less. His humor was never wit and 
was always without sting. It was his "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" 
that made the Atlantic Monthly a great magazine from the beginning. 

"The Bigelow Papers" made for James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)' 
a name sui generis to the world of letters. As Emerson stood for American 
thought so has Lowell become our representative man of letters. He at- 
tained that position not so much as an indomitable writer nor chiefly as a 
poet but from being the best equipped all-around writer and man of letters 
this country has ever produced. His acquirements, his versatile writings, 
the conditions of his life, the mold of the man, and the spirit of his whole 
work have given him a peculiar distinction. He stands out in our history 
not only as a man of letters, but as an exemplar of culture, a citizen of the 
world, and a better American, because he was also a cosmopolitan. And 
the beauty and excellence of the man were that in him was the true Amer- 
ica. In his poetry he wrought to unite the human and the divine and give 
a word of hope to men. 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was pre-eminently the poet 
of New England. There has indeed been no New England poet for whom 
New England itself has not largely furnished material and inspiration. 
But Whittier' s poetry in the essence attempted an appeal as wide as the 
nation and the race. In a group of distinguished critics shortly after the 
close of the Civil War, Horace Greeley was asked who was the best Amer- 
ican poet and he at once replied with the name of Whittier and for once all 
were in accord. It was discovered that Whittier at that time most nearly 
satisfied the poetic needs of the typical, vigorous American. The English 
who studied him at that time to get at the soul of America, pronounced 
him the most "national and most characteristic" of all our writers in his 
extraordinary fluency, narrow experience and wide S5'mpathy, which meant 
to the average Englishman, loquacity, provincialism, and generosity of 
heart. Whittier was great for his time and he served well the purpose for 
which he sang. If his song was never that of the people at large, it sought 
to remove that which separated the country into sections. Therefore, with 
his pen, he helped make America what it now is — a nation, in will, feel- 
ing and emotion. He pla3^ed a great part in our Civil Reformation. He 
surpassed Longfellow in force and in truth for he was no imitator of the 
Old World. Whittier belongs with Greeley and Harriet Beecher Stowe 
in his work for Abolition. 

433 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

An Englishman who packs his grip to this day, we are told, puts in it 
a copy of Artemus Ward's lectures. As popular as this first of Ameri- 
can humorists was in America fifty years ago, he was more popular in 
England, and is still a prince of American humorists. In his own coun- 
try his fame was somewhat obscured by the growing reputation of Mark 
Twain and other humorists. Artemus Ward's humor has spontaneity, 
warmth, color, richness, purity and sweetness. He made his first repu- 
tation as a humorist on the Cleveland Plain Dealer and for a few years, or 
from about 1863 to his death, he lectured in America and England, con- 
vulsing the sides of more people than any other speaker who had ever occu- 
pied the lecture platform. 

The realm of Southern folklore gave to us Joel Chandler Harris 
(1848-1898). His Uncle Remus' stories are more than a collection of 
folk stories, but rather a revelation of the soul of the humbler classes of 
American negroes. In the gay adventures of Br'er Rabbit, who typifies the 
triumph of weakness and mischief over strength, we see a reflection of a 
race that could laugh and be happy in a condition of slavery. Uncle 
Remus is a real artistic creation, a character that will live. Human, 
lovable, he has endeared himself to millions. 

The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" entitle 
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe respectively to 
honored places among great American authors. If Thomas Nelson Page 
had never written anything but "Mars Chan," he would have well earned 
for himself the membership to such company. James Whitcomb Riley, 
the Hoosier poet, belongs here too. There was Timrod and Lanier of the 
South in the past. They too sang for the world. 

Modern American literature is rich in great names but almost every 
one of those great names is that of a novelist. We have many modern 
poets, but this Twentieth Century does not seem to inspire either the perfec- 
tion of Longfellow or the strength of Walt Whitman. The work of our 
dramatists also seems to present contemporary themes without intent of 
preserving them in book form. Our fiction writers, however, exhibit the 
qualities which have always been praised in the work of the great European 
novelists. 

The movement in fiction began with Henry James and William Dean 
Howells, two extremes. Henry James, who spent most of his life abroad 
and became a British subject, likes to depict some American whose crudities 
or peculiarities are thrown into strong relief against the background of a 
more formal European life. He analyzes the most tenuous psychological 
motives. Howell's psychology on the contrary gives us for the first time 
a faithful picture of the American in his natural environment, a picture 

434. 



GREAT AMERICAN AUTHORS 

which Is neither Idealized by a patriotic bias nor distorted by snobbery. It 
is especially as a painter of American society "in the making" that Howell's 
will endure in this country and abroad. 

Most notable among the more modem writers of virile American life 
are Jack London, Edith Wharton, Frank Norris, Robert Herrick, Winston 
Churchill. London sounded a purely American and extremely original and 
powerful note in his first book, the best known of which is perhaps the 
"Call of the Wild," depicting the lure and mystery of the Northland and 
the rough energetic life of that region. Edith Wharton wrote the epic of 
New England in her sober, gloomy masterpiece, "Ethan Frome," Norris 
in "The Octopus" tells a powerful tale of California at the time of the great 
railroad expansion. It is also one of the first economic reform novels, ex- 
posing the wrong from gigantic industrial enterprises. Winston Churchill 
is perhaps the most truly American novelist of the times, depicting as he 
does the sturdy American characters in the various epochs of our national 
life with a firm hand and keen understanding of the underlying psychology 
of American institutions, especially in matters of church and state. 

Literature has reached a very democratic stage in America. More 
persons are engaged in the profession of writing, and more books and stories 
are being published in America to-day than in any other nation In the world, 
or than at any other time in the world's history. But, as Voltaire said, 
"It is with books as with men; a very small number play a great part; the 
rest are confounded with the multitude." 

The love of beauty is inherent in the human race; It waits only the 
opportunity for expression. Our hands and minds have been fully occu- 
pied in the building of trans-continental railroads : in each of these there is 
a great poem ; every stroke of the axe has been an immortal elegy. Greater 
poets than ever wrote a sonnet In the Elizabethan Age have been blasting 
the mountains to make way for the whirring wheels of commerce. The 
large purring, puffing locomotive Is an ode to triumph. The swiftly mov- 
ing electric train is a lyric to power. The great modern towers of Babel 
are idylls to valor. The mediums of expression may differ, but the instinc- 
tive ability of man to create from his imagination always is with us. 

The day will come when the Americans shall rest from their labors 
and give full expression to their inherent love for the finer arts through the 
more leisurely and conventional mediums of genius — then we shall picture 
and paint, and mold and relate forms of rarer beauty than the world has 
yet seen. 



435 



PART V CHAPTER XVIII 

GREAT AMERICAN ARTISTS 



"The Fine Arts are those which have primarily to do with the imagination 
and taste, and are applied to the production of what is beautiful." 

— Webster. 



A 



•* ;4 I^T is the effort of man to express the ideas which nature sug- 
gests to him of a power above nature, whether that power 
be within the recesses of his own being, or in the Great First 
Cause of which nature, like himself, is but the effect." This 
is the definition given by Lytton in one of his essays. It is Irving who 
adapts this to the American nationality when he adds: "In America, 
literature and the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser 
plants of daily necessity." 

It is frequently charged by Europeans that we Americans are wholly 
a material people; that we are producers of wealth, but not producers of 
art. There could be no falser falsehood. "Art," Emerson said, "is na- 
ture with man's will applied thereto" — and here in America we are laying 
the foundation for the truest art that the world has ever known. It is 
quite true that during the first epochs in our national life we have been 
directing our larger energies to lay the material foundation for the great 
structure that we are erecting — a structure of society that gives every indi- 
cation of contributing more liberally to the Fine Arts than any system of 
society under which mankind has ever worked. 

The love of beauty is inherent in the human race — and American 
nationality is but a composite of all the races of the earth, an embodiment 
of their hopes and ambitions. The foundation is laid solidly, and upon 
this we are to erect the edifice of American Art. Let us survey our ma- 
terials. The first centuries in the history of America were devoted to 
securing for the settlers the prime necessities of life ; all the energies of the 
time were spent in practical pursuits, and consequently the arts were long 
neglected by the sturdy pioneers. Then came the colonial period and 
the Revolution, during which British influences prevailed in the New 
World, with an inclination to follow the Italians. 

Great events always produce the man — latent genius is inspired by 
social convulsions. Thus, from the American Revolution and the first 
struggles of our national existence there arose the first American school 
of art, which in its originality and skill has left its permanent impression 

436 




LAKGEST lUVERS IN WESTERN AMERICA AloiiK the roliiinbia or Orcyoii Riv.i ; wiiji ii I. ranches 

it bas 2,182 miles of navigable waters — It drains an area larger than the Gerniau Empire 

in Europe — The cliff is Cape Horn. 



GREAT AMERICAN ARTISTS 

on the art world. There came forth a group of men with brilliant imagina- 
tions and the artisan's skill — West, Copley, Trumbull, Stuart, Allston, 
the Peaks, and Sully. 

We can linger but a few moments over these painters and their easels. 
The first of the American painters was Benjamin West, the Pennsylvanian 
(1738-1820). After some instruction he painted "The Death of So- 
crates" for a gunsmith, and established himself as a portrait painter in 
Philadelphia at five guineas per portrait. Soon he visited Rome and 
painted "Cimon and Iphigenia" and "Angelica and Medora." He was 
elected a member of the Academies of Florence, Bologna, and Parma, and 
finally settled in England, where he painted a historical canvas of "Agrip- 
pina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus," for the Archbishop of 
York, who introduced him to George III. The king became his steadfast 
patron and for many years gave him commissions. He was appointed 
in 1772 historical painter to the king and later surveyor of the royal pic- 
tures. 

Benjamin West was one of four selected to draw up a plan of the 
Royal Academy and was one of its original members. There he exhibited 
his painting, "The Death of General Wolfe," departing from the custom 
of the artists of the day of giving the characters Greek or Roman costumes. 
It was then that Reynolds, who had endeavored to dissuade him, said, "I 
retract my objections. I foresee that this picture will not only become one 
of the most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art." West painted 
a series of historical works for Windsor Castle ; also a series on the progress 
of revealed religion — antediluvian, patriarchal. Mosaic, and prophetic — 
for the chapel. This American, on the death of Reynolds in 1792, was 
unanimously elected president of the Royal Academy. He continued to 
devote his genius to religious and historical subjects on very large can- 
vases, and among them we find "Christ Healing the Sick" (in the National 
Gallery), the "Crucifixion," the "Ascension," and "Death on the Pale 
Horse" (Pennsylvania Academy). The "Battle of La Hogue" is con- 
sidered by critics the best of his historical paintings. West left about 
four hundred paintings to his credit. 

America was beginning to establish itself in the world of art when 
John Singleton Copley (1737-1815), a Bostonian, brought glory to his 
beloved country. Copley sent anonymously to Benjamin West in Eng- 
land a portrait called "The Boy and the Flying Squirrel." This was ex- 
hibited and gained recognition by the best English artists of the time. 
Copley left his native land and sailed for England, visiting Italy and set- 
tling in London, where he developed rapidly as a portrait painter. His 
genius was given full recognition when he was elected a member of the 

439 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Royal Academy. His most celebrated paintings are portraits of the Eng- 
lish royal family: the "Death of Lord Chatham," now in the Lon- 
don National Gallery; "Siege and Relief of Gibraltar," in the council 
chamber of the Guildhall; "Major Pierson's Death on the Isle of Jer- 
sey"; "Surrender of Admiral De Winter to Lord Duncan"; "Charles I. 
Demanding the Five Impeached Members in the House of Commons"; 
"The Red Cross Knight"; "Mrs. Derby as St. Cecilia." Copley left fifty- 
four paintings, which he presented to Yale College in consideration of an 
annuity of $1,000. 

The dramatic events of the American Revolution aroused the genius 
of a Connecticut youth — John Trumbull (1756-1843). He was gradu- 
ated at Harvard three years before the outbreak of the war and served 
in the Revolution. He, too, went to England to study under West, but 
was imprisoned on a charge of treason and forced to leave tlie country. 
Some years later, after the angers of war had subsided, he returned to 
England and became the pupil of West. Trumbull's first historical pic- 
ture was the earliest direct contribution to American national art, when 
he painted the "Battle of Bunker Hill." This was followed by the 
"Death of Montgomery Before Quebec" and "Sortie of the Garrison from 
Gibraltar." He was appointed by Congress to paint four pictures for the 
rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, "The Declaration of Independ- 
ence," the "Surrender of Burgoyne," the "Surrender of Cornwallis," and 
the "Resignation of Washington at Annapolis." 

The fourth to join this illustrious group of American painters was 
Gilbert Stuart, a Rhode Islander (1755-1828). He was a born portrait 
painter and was busy at his easel when thirteen years old. West recog- 
nized his talent, took him into his home in England, and gave him in- 
struction in art. The young American obtained distinction in London 
and painted portraits of George III, George IV, while Prince of Wales, 
Mrs. Siddons, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Benjamin West, after which he 
went to Paris, where he had Louis XVI as a royal subject. His great 
ambition was to practise his art in America, and he returned and opened 
a studio first in New York and subsequently in Philadelphia. Here he 
painted Washington during his term as first President of the United 
States. This was the first of the famous portraits of the "Father of His 
Country" by Stuart. He also painted a full-length portrait of Wash- 
ington for the Marquis of Lansdowne. Nearly forty copies from the 
originals of various sittings made by Stuart are now in existence. He 
is represented by six paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: 
"Washington" (two portraits), "John Jay," "Captain Henry Rice," 
"Mr. David Sears," "Commodore Isaac Hull." Stuart painted the first 

440 



GREAT AMERICAN ARTISTS 

five Presidents of the United States. He ranks with the best portrait 
painters of the English-American School. 

South Carolina now contributed to this galaxy of masters an Amer- 
ican who has been called the "American Titian" — Washington AUston 
(1779-1843). He studied art in Europe and, after a residence in Eng- 
land, opened a studio in Boston. His painting "The Dead Man Re- 
vived" was awarded a prize of 200 guineas. His canvases include "The 
Prophet Jeremiah"; "Spanish Girl"; "Spalatro's Vision of the Bloody 
Hand"; "Belshazzar's Feast," and portraits of Benjamin West, Coleridge, 
and himself. 

Then there are the Peales — father and son — an old Maryland fam- 
ily. The sire, bearing the name of Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1827) 
turned from saddlery to portrait painting. He became a pupil of Copley 
at Boston and of West in London. Portraiture, mezzotinto engraving, 
modeling in wax, and casting and molding in plaster, received his atten- 
tion. He opened a studio in Philadelphia in the year of the Declaration 
of Independence and was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature three 
years later. During Jefferson's administration, he opened Peale's Mu- 
seum, including collections of portraits and objects of natural history. 
Peale was a collector of natural curiosities and a lecturer on natural his- 
tory. It is said that "he sawed the ivory on which his miniatures were 
painted, molded the glass that covered them, and made the shagreen cases 
that enclosed them." For many years he was the only portrait painter 
of importance in the colonies. Washington granted him fourteen sittings 
in all poses from colonel of Virginia militia to "father of his country." 
Peale also painted Robert Morris, financier of the American Revolution, 
Hancock, Gates, Baron de Steuben, Comte de Rochambeau, Franklin, Na- 
thaniel Greene, Jefferson, Hamilton, Monroe, Jackson, J. Q. Adams, Cal- 
houn, and Clay — all notable figures in the early days of nation building. 

American painting was rapidly earning its full recognition, when an- 
other Pennsylvanian appears — Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), second son 
of C. W. Peale. He became one of West's pupils in London, and later 
went to Paris to paint portraits of celebrities for Peale's Museum at Phila- 
delphia, to which city he returned. Two of his great exhibition paintings 
are "The Roman Daughter" and "The Court of Death." He painted 
Washington several times. The original of his portrait of 1823 was pur- 
chased by Congress for $2,000. Chief Justice Marshall called it "more 
Washington himself than any portrait I have ever seen." 

It was now that an English-American entered this group of American 
painters — Thomas Sully (1783-1872). He was born in England but 
came to the United States with his parents, who were actors, and studied 

441 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

painting in Charleston, South Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia, later re- 
moving to New York. He returned to London to complete his studies, 
and two years later came back and settled in Philadelphia. He stands 
out as one of the leading American painters of portraits, the best known 
of which are the full-length portraits of Dr. Benjamin Rush, Commodore 
Decatur, Thomas Jefferson, and Lafayette. His celebrated painting of 
^'Washington Crossing the Delaware" is in the Boston Museum. 

With the passing of these founders of American art we enter the 
middle period when native stylists began to appear — such as Thomas Cole, 
Kensett, Church, Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Harding Inman, Hunting- 
ton, Mount; Emanuel Leutze, Hicks, Fuller, and William Morris Hunt. 

Art life in America had been an incessant struggle for recognition up 
to this point, and it only began to come into its own with the sudden 
growth in wealth and taste following the American Civil War in 1865 
and the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Then it entered upon the third 
period with Johnson, Vedder, and La Farge ; Homer, Inness, Wyant, Mar- 
tin, Chase, Cox, and Blashfield; Twachtman, Robinson, Harrison, and 
the modern masters — Whistler, Abbey, and Sargeant. Their works are 
so well known to the present generation that it is needless to enlarge upon 
them. 

Here, after many travails, America at last produced a master who 
may be called the greatest innovator of his century — James A. McNeil 
Whistler (1834-1903). He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and at 
seventeen years of age was appointed to the West Point Military Academy, 
which he left after four years to become a draughtsman in the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey. It was in this work that he learned the first rudiments 
of his great art, but he soon left it to go to Europe. In Paris, he became 
a pupil in the Art Studio of C. G. Glere of The Ingres' School. Previous 
to the series generally styled the "French Set," Whistler is known to have 
etched three plates. The French Set depict street scenes, interiors and 
figures. Then going to London he etched the "Thames Set," treating of 
the river craft. The unfailing characteristics of all his etchings are pre- 
cision and flexibility of line and remarkable picturesqueness in the render- 
ing of shade and light. Their observations and their technical skill are 
alike noteworthy. All of Whistler's plates are highly prized by connois- 
seurs, even more than can be said for Rembrandt. Whistler is without 
doubt the most original genius of plastic art bom in America, one of the 
world's finest etchers. He belongs to no particular school, and whatever 
he did was his own, barring the influence of the Japanese. His art is 
simple — the maximum of effort with the minimum of point. The por- 
trait of his mother ranks with the world's greatest paintings. Whistler 

442 



GRANDEUR OF NIAGARA — "The most awe-inspiring spectacle in the world" — The waters plunge 
165 feet into whirlpool rapids — The crest of the American Falls extends 1,060 feet; 
the Canadian Falls, 3,013 feet. 




GLITTERING BEAUTY OF NIAGARA IN WINTER— This impressive sight demonstrates the 

power of nature — The ice king touches the mighty waterfalls and they are 

transformed into myriads of sparkling jewels under the light of the sun. 



GREAT AlVIERICAN ARTISTS 

was personally a most eccentric man and delighted in making enemies. 
He died in London. 

Among his contemporaries, Winslow Homer and John La Farge did 
very strong and original work. Homer's individuality of conception has 
never been surpassed, and La Farge's sense of color and line has made 
him America's greatest decorative painter. Edwin Abbey, whose paint- 
ings decorate the Boston Library, is another voluntary exile, who first had 
to seek recognition in England, but finally came into his own in America, 
as a master of mural painting. 

Paris, Munich, London, and Rome have large colonies of American- 
born painters whose work, however, is more European than American. 
The Paris colony includes men like Bridgman, Dannat, McEwen, Walter 
Gay, and Sergeant Kendall. C. F. Ulrich makes Munich his home; Shan- 
non is in London, and Coleman in Italy. 

America has contributed to the art world portrait and genre painters 
like John W. Alexander and William Chase, men of cosmopolitan tastes 
with a leaning toward French methods. Our landscape painters have al- 
ways had a distinctly American flavor. The strongest landscapist of our 
times, George Innes, is an innovator and an experimenter; further, he 
knows the solidity of nature. The mass and bulk of landscape are ex- 
pressed marvelously by his brush. No one has visualized with more 
power the savage grandeur of the desolate New England shores. Among 
the men, who have taken landscape and figure as their subjects, there is 
a notable energy of treatment and a very gratifying sense of the things 
typically American — Tyron, Dearth, Crane, Murphy, Dabo, Horatio 
Walker, Weir, Twachtman. Gedney Bunce, drawing upon European 
memories for his inspiration, has painted Venetian marine scenes of charm- 
ing quality. De Haas, Maynard, Snell, Butler, Chapman have selected 
their subjects nearer home and obtained very striking effects with views 
of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Thus we find that in America we have 
a national art which is building steadily upon the foundation that has been 
firmly laid. 

The ancient masters of sculpture might also look with expectancy 
upon their pupils in the New World. Great memorial shafts, monuments, 
mausoleums, fountains, and heroic statues are rising in the public squares 
and parks in every town and city of the land — tributes to the valor of 
men or landmarks to great events in the building of the republic. While 
these do not as a whole typify great art, they are at least an expression of 
the growing instinct of the people for the Fine Arts. 

The history of American sculpture begins in 1820, when John Frazee 
made a bust of John Wells for Grace Church, New York. This was the 

445 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

first marble portrait made by an American sculptor. Before John Frazee, 
during the Eighteenth Century, we hear of a Mrs. Patience Wright of New 
Jersey who "executed wax figures." Her wax likeness of Lord Chatham 
was considered good enough to be admitted to Westminster Abbey. 
There was also John Dixey, an Irishman, who came to America in 1789 
and made the figures of "Justice" for the City Hall, New York, and the 
State House at Albany. An Italian, Guiseppe Cerrachi, came to this coun- 
try in 1791 with a design for an elaborate monument to "Liberty." A 
public subscription was started to enable the artist to have his design car- 
ried out in stone; in spite of the fact that George Washington headed the 
list of subscribers, the necessary sums were not raised. Cerrachi, disap- 
pointed, left the country after having made a few interesting busts of 
Washington, Hamilton, Clinton, Paul Jones, and John Hay. 

Sculpture struggled nobly to obtain a foothold in America. William 
Rush, of Philadelphia, a self-taught genius, carved in wood and mod- 
eled in clay and wax. His bust of Washington in the Pennsylvania Acad- 
emy of Fine Arts and his wooden "Water Nymph," now reproduced in 
bronze, decorate Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Horatio Greenough 
was charged with indecency for his marble group, the "Chanting Cherubs" 
and his statue of "Venus Victrix." It was only after a committee of 
clergymen had passed upon the "Greek Slave" that Hiram Powers was al- 
lowed to exhibit it in Cincinnati or to make replicas. Crawford, Browne, 
Story, Ball, Harriet Hosmer, and others, followed the classical principles 
of Canova and Thorvaldsen and adapted their master's work to the prudish 
taste of their times. 

It is not until we greet Quincy Adam Ward that we finally meet a 
great American sculptor of the sturdy type. He took a bold stand, little 
affected by foreign influences. Ignoring entirely the so-called classical 
subjects, Ward derived his inspiration from national American types. 
He treated very successfully subjects like "The Indian," "The Freedman," 
"The Pilgrim," the "Private of the Seventh Regiment." His masterpiece 
is the noble statue of Henry Ward Beecher, in Brooklyn. 

Behold, the master I The advent of Augustus Saint Gaudens, son 
of a French father and an Irish mother — but born in New York — gave to 
America one of the greatest of modern sculptors. Saint Gaudens was 
trained in the Ecole des beaux Arts in Paris, but, deeply in love with 
American subjects, has been the most powerful factor in bringing American 
sculpture to its present state of excellence. In his bas-reliefs of the sons 
of Prescott Hall Butler, in his caryatids for the house of Cornelius Van- 
derbilt, the wall reliefs in All Souls' Church, New York, and the Prince- 
ton University Chapel, Saint Gaudens has shown that he had the soul of 

446 



:GREAT AINIERICAN ARTISTS 

the Greek sculptors in grace and purely external charm. But it is in ex- 
pressing individual character that he achieves his greatest triumphs. Look 
upon his statue of Admiral Farragut in Madison Square; the Lincoln 
Statue in Lincoln Park, Chicago; the statue of Deacon Chapin, better 
known as "The Puritan," in Springfield, Massachusetts — here we see the 
hand of the great American master. 

The granite hills of New Hampshire have given the modem world 
another great craftsman — Daniel Chester French. He early attracted at- 
tention by his bronze statue of the "Minute Man" unveiled at Concord 
in 1875. After passing through a period of struggle, he emerged into 
real fame through his colossal statue of the "Republic" for the Columbian 
Exhibition, and his remarkable relief of "Death and the Sculptor." His 
statue of General Cass, his reliefs of angels for the Clark Memorial, and 
his group for the John Boyle O'Reilley Memorial, are works of the very 
first rank. 

Modem America is beginning to produce the highest art of the times. 
Frederick MacMonnies, a pupil of Saint Gaudens, had first to seek rec- 
ognition in other lands. His statue of the "Bacchante" aroused the ire 
of the conservatives in Boston. And yet that statue, as well as his "Boy 
and Heron" and his "Pan," are striking examples of true American energy 
and directness in art. His statue of Nathan Hale in the City Hall Park, 
New York City, is one of our best civic .monuments. 

The work of Herbert Adams, of Brooklyn, shows his indebtedness to 
Saint Gaudens in his bronze angel for Emanuel Baptist Church, Brooklyn, 
and his marble bas-relief for the Judson Memorial Church, New York. 
Almost alone among our sculptors, Adams has turned to the Florence of 
the Fifteenth Century for his inspiration. His delicately colored female 
busts, and his relief entitled "Orchid," have an exquisitely refined Floren- 
tine charm. 

Sculpture is coming in America — In fact it is already here. The list 
of sculptors is by no means exhausted with the names we have mentioned. 

Art in America has arrived; its various schools are performing an in- 
estimable service to the American people; estheticism is ingrafting itself 
into our national life. And yet we are only in the beginning of our art 
era. If, as Zangwill says, "Art is Truth made Beautiful," or, as Delsarti 
has said, "Art is Emotion which has passed through Thought and become 
fixed in Form" — then the world must in the coming generations look to the 
American democracy for the liberalizing influences, the emancipation from 
old schools and forms — for the new era in the Fine Arts. 



447 



PART V CHAPTER XIX 

GREAT AMERICAN COMPOSERS 



"The man that hath no music In himself, 
And is not moved with concord of sweet sounds. 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." 

— Shakespeare: "Merchant of Venice." 



THE American Longfellow In one of his poems defined music as 
"the Universal Language of Mankind." It is indeed this and 
more — it is the medium of national expression, the voice from 
the heart of the people, the outpouring of a nation's soul. Music 
may speak in a "universal language," but it assumes the physical and 
spiritual intonations of the various groups of people in their individual 
nations and is a true psychological interpretation of national character. 

Music is not only a psychological revelation, but it is an index to the 
economic and social status of a nation and authentically narrates the his- 
torical development of the people. It may be a joyous outburst as in 
exultation over victory, or sorrowful as in a pseon of discouragement and 
misfortune. It assumes the melancholy tones of revolution or the light 
moods of a pleasure-loving race. It depicts the varying national moods 
in the various national epochs — tragedy or jubilation, comedy or romance 
— and rises in devotional supplication according to the spiritual insight of 
the people. 

Music is technically defined as the science of combining tones in me- 
lodic, rhythmic, and harmonic order, so as to excite the emotions or appeal 
to the intellect. For untold ages it was purely emotional. With its de- 
velopment as a science, in the Middle Ages, it appealed almost entirely to 
the intellect, until to-day the truest music is that which combines both 
the intellectual and the emotional — the mind and the heart. 

In America, we have produced but few masters of matured musical 
expression, but rather a race of music-lovers from which eventually will 
arise the American masters. It may be truly said that the American people 
have been bringing their music with them in their migrations from the Old 
World. The American democracy is composed of the blood of all the 
races of the earth — it is the product of the older civilizations turned into a 
new mold from which is evolved a new, strong, virile race. Thus we 
have in this country the living spirit of all the world's music — the millions 
of Germans, Italians, Polish, and those of other strains that have given the 
world its noblest compositions have brought with them to America the 

448 




MOST MAGNIFICENT LIIUtAKY BUILDING IN THE WdULl" l.ihiaiy ..i' Congress in Wasliin.uton 

— It occupies tbree and three-quarter acres and can accommodate over 4,000,000 volunios 

— It cost $6,500,000 and contains the woi"k of forty American painters. 



'■^ 



.-''''"''^X 





MATKJNAL MUSEUM AT WASHINGTON — This is the National i lepository for scientilir .ind liisioric 

<'Ollec,tions — The building cost $o, 500. 000 and contains exhibits relating to 

the origin and developnieiit of the Anierican people. 



GREAT AMERICAN COMPOSERS 

very soul of music. These peoples who have come to us from foreign 
lands bring with them the genius of Beethoven, the world's supreme mas- 
ter, and the passionate intensity of the great Wagner. 

The strains from the masters rise from the homes of the people 
throughout the republic. All the tone-masters of the modern world are 
the common heritage of the American people, and their voices live and 
speak throughout the nation — the organ tones of the greatest of all masses 
from Bach ; the noble melody of the world's greatest oratorio from Handel ; 
the scores of the first dramatic school of operatic music from Gliick; the 
classical piano sonatas introduced by Haydn, improved by the melodic 
grace of Mozart, and brought to a culmination by the super-master 
Beethoven; the varied works of Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Verdi, 
Bizet; Liszt, king of the pianoforte, and Chopin, the poet of the piano. 
A host of modern composers have endowed America with their melodies 
— Russians, Polish, Hungarians — the genius of the earth finds its patrons 
among the American people. 

So it is that the time cannot be far distant when America will pro- 
duce its own masters — its own school of native music which will contribute 
generously to the world's masterpieces — for we have here in this country 
the nervous energy, the suppressed emotions, the spiritual force, the intel- 
lectual growth, the spontaneity from which all art bursts forth. 

The first settlers of America viewed music very suspiciously; they 
were a colorless people, prosaic and without temperament. Their fore- 
bears had never produced a musician of the first rank; then music like many 
other arts was held to be sinful under their theocratic regime. Some New 
England communities banished it under the pretexts that "the names of the 
notes are blasphemous; it makes a disturbance, grieves good men, exasper- 
ates them and causes them to behave disorderly." 

Music in America is a very recent development. Indeed, with the 
exception of a few names, every American composer of note is of the pres- 
ent generation. While almost every American composer received his train- 
ing at the hands of German teachers, American music has always struck 
a personal note. Nor is this due to the use of negro or Indian themes 
from which native composers cannot be said as yet to have derived much 
inspiration. 

America has brought forth, in the last generation, a school of orches- 
tral writers of which John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), George Whitfield 

Chadwick (1854 )» ^^^ Edward Alexander MacDowell (1861-1908), 

are the foremost, while Horatio Parker (1863 ) has brought the 

American oratorio to a much higher standard than it had ever before at- 
tained. These names are now familiar to European concert-goers. 

451 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Let us meet these men with a passing introduction in the order of their 
day. Paine, the American organist and composer, was born in Maine and 
at an early age felt the spell of Germany; and there he went to study with 
the masters. The love of homeland soon called him back, and he found 
himself in the classic surroundings of Cambridge as a professor of music 
at Harvard. The Muses cast their spell over him, and his first contribu- 
tion was the music for the "QEdipus Tyrannus" of Sophocles. He was 
chosen to write the "Centennial Hymn" to Whittier's words for the Cen- 
tennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, and the Columbus march and 
hymn for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 — thus 
bestowing informally upon him the first "laureateship" in our national 
music. He rose to his full height, however, when he wrote the opera 
*'Azara," which is worthy to become a permanent work, and later pro- 
duced many symphonic poems and cantatas. 

New England, that portion of our country which has contributed so 
largely to American nationality, then gave another of its sons to the Muses 
— George Whitfield Chadwick — a product of Massachusetts. Chadwick, 
too, was drawn to Leipsic and then returned to Boston, where he became 
a musical director and conducted the annual music festivals at Worcester. 
His claims to distinction lie in his opera "Judith," a symphony "Jubilee," 
a comic opera "Tobasco," and a chorus, the "Columbian Ode." 

The greatest American composer, according to the foreign critics, is 
Edward Alexander MacDowell. A New Yorker by birth, but of Scottish 
descent, MacDowell early won recognition in Europe. He studied in 
Paris and in Germany. At the age of twenty-one, he was invited by Liszt 
to play his first piano suite before the formidable AUgemeiner Deutscher 
Musik Verein, the most exclusive musical society of Germany, which ac- 
corded him an enthusiastic reception. His works succeeded from the first 
in winning favor; they are played constantly in Germany, Austria, Hol- 
land, Russia and France. One of them was performed three times in one 
single season in Breslau. 

MacDowell never was attracted by negro music, but always contended 
that the virile strains of Indian songs are more adapted to the American 
temperament than the rather lazy, sensuous slave tunes of the South. He 
collected and compiled the folk-music of the prairies and based one of his 
most important works upon Indian themes. This is his "Indian Suite" — ■ 
a work which is being performed frequently and always leaves a very 
profound impression on the audience, especially the solemn dirge which 
constitutes one of its numbers. Besides the "Indian Suite," MacDowell 
has written several poems for orchestra and orchestral suites. His so- 
natas, "Eroica," "Tragica," "Scandinavian," and "Celtic," his various com- 

452 



GREAT AMERICAN COMPOSERS 

positions for piano, and his many songs have great charm and individu- 
ality. In recitals of his own compositions MacDowell showed that he 
was not only a great composer but a pianist of the first rank. 

The classicist of the conservative academic school in American music 
is Horatio William Parker — the scholar of almost every known musical 
form from a symphony to an operetta, from an oratorio to chamber music. 
Parker is another product of Massachusetts brought into an European 
environment. He was graduated from the Munich Royal Conservatory 
and then came home to his native land as an organist and professor of the 
theory of music at Yale University. His compositions rank high in Amer- 
ican music; they include the oratorio "Hora Novissima," the first American 
music presented at an English musical festival; "A Wanderer's Psalm," 
which also was given at the English festivals; the oratorio of "St. Chris- 
topher"; the cantatas "King Trojan" and "The Kobolds," with many later 
works. It is Parker who holds the distinction of composing the first opera of 
the classical school that approaches the long-sought ambition of "the great 
American opera." His production of "Mona" received the $10,000 award 
offered in competition with all the American composers by the Metropolitan 
Opera Company. This earned for him the position of our "greatest Amer- 
ican composer" after the death of MacDowell. 

The Spirit of Music is now reigning over America — genius is strug- 
gling to break its bonds and soar to the pinnacle of the divine art. Many 
notable composers are rising, whom, however, the limitations of these pages 
will not allow us to discuss — ^but among them are Converse with his "The 
Pipe of Desire" and other notable contributions; Victor Herbert with his 
"Natoma," and Arthur Nevins. 

America has produced a popular idol of modem pianists — Ethelbert 
Nevin. He was born near Pittsburgh. His writings have been altogether 
along the smaller lines of composition, short, simple, delicate little pieces, 
which have won him an enviable place as a worker in gems. It is pleasant 
to record the achievements of a composer who has been financially success- 
ful without ever forfeiting the respect of the greatest artists and harmonists, 
and without sacrificing his own conscience and individuality. Graceful 
and lyrical, though not afraid of radical modernism in harmony, he devoted 
his genius to songs and piano pieces exclusively. His "Sketch-Book," 
"Day in Venice," "In Arcady," "Serenade," justify fully what the famous 
pianist and musical editor, Klindworth, said of him : "He can say for the 
musical world something that no one else can say." 

America has given the world one of the most versatile of geniuses In 
John Philip Sousa, bandmaster, composer, novelist, and writer of humor- 
ous verse. At the age of 1 1 he first appeared in public as a violin soloist, 

453 



AMEPtICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

at 15 was teaching harmony, at 22 became one of the first violins in an 
orchestra conducted by Offenbach, and later was appointed conductor of 
the United States Marine Band. 

It was when he began to compose marches that his fame spread, first 
throughout this country, then abroad. Such is the lilt of his music that 
his marches have invaded the realm of the dance. There is probably no 
composer in the world whose financial success equals his. He sold his 
"Washington Post" march outright for $35, but his "Liberty Bell March" 
has netted him $100,000, and his "Stars and Stripes Forever" added 
greatly to his fame and his income. He became too big for the Marine 
Band, and organized the Sousa Band, touring his own country, Europe, 
and then the world. When he began writing comic operas his success 
was still greater. He has written the m.usic for eleven, including "El 
Capitan," "The Smugglers" and "The Charlatan." Also he has composed 
several suites, symphonic poems and many songs. Lately he has com- 
posed numerous other marches, including "America: The Messiah of Na- 
tions," "The March of the States," and "The Hippodrome March." Not 
content with musical fame, he wrote two successful novels, "The Fifth 
String" and "Pipetown Sandy." He has been decorated by the king of 
Great Britain and by the French Government. His compositions for the 
band, however, have won universal approval. Thus it is that the son of 
a Portuguese father and a German mother has made at least one variety of 
American music famous in all parts of the world. 

Among the thorough Americans who should be mentioned here is 
Edgar Stillman Kelley, a son of the Middle West, having been born in 
Wisconsin. His first work was stage music to "Macbeth," and was played 
in San Francisco with great success. His second work, a comic opera, 
was refused by the man who had ordered it ; completely discouraged, Kelley 
abandoned music for journalism. He was, fortunately, prevailed upon to 
return to composition. A humorous symphony and a "Chinese suite" met 
with immediate success after his previous disappointment. Two songs 
which are settings of verse by Poe, "Eldorado," and "Israfel" will prob- 
ably prove his masterpieces; for they are perhaps the greatest lyrics in 
modern music. 

To Anton Dvorak, the Bohemian composer, who came to this country 
in 1892 and glorified Southern music in his symphony, the "New World," 
America is in a measure indebted for the compositions of Harvey Worth- 
ington Loomis. An amateur until he met Dvorak, Loomis received so 
much encouragement at the hands of the Bohemian master that he decided 
to give a free rein to his artistic leanings. Although Loomis has written 

454 




M VSTEIU'IEC'E FROM MOIiCJAN ART COLLECTION— This masniticont paintins is reproduced 
' "in this volume through courtesy of Mr. J. Pierppnt Morgan— It is Raphael s "Yrgin and 
Child, Enthroned with Saints"— The original is in the Metropolitan Museum ot Art. 



^! 




IROQUIOS INDIAN WOMAN POUNDING CORH 



AMERICAN ANIMALS -ROOSEVELT ELK FROM NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES 




LARGEST METEORITE IN WORLD -36^2 TONS 
BROUGHT FROM GREENLAND BY ROBERT E.PEARY 




BEAVERS FROM COLORADO - SHOWING HOW THESE ANIMALS LIVE AND WOf 



HISTORIC COLLKfTIUNS IN FAMOLS AMERICAN MUSEUMS — Tlio cxliil)its on tliesc pages arc repro- 
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, is _ a. treasure house of all mementos gathered from all parts of the earth. 




► 



^^„^.^^,- ^. LIFE AMONG THE AMERICAN INDIANS - NAVAJO INDIAN GROUP 

PREHISTORIC SKULL 




INDIAN WAR CANOE FROM ALASKA-64y2 FEET LONG DUG FROM A SINGLE TREE 




V 'fi 




AMERICAN EGRET FROM SOUTH CAROLINA 



POLAR BEARS -MALE ON RIGHT BROUGHT FROM ARCTIC BY ROBERT E.PEARV 





SHELL CAMEO CARVED IN ITALY 

RICAN BISON OR BUFFALO - FROM THE PRAIR1E5 OF THE GREAT WEST gem collection of j. pierpont morgan 



MUSKIM OF NATURAL IIIS'rOKY— This institution is rich in its ai-clioolosicnl (■olle(tioiis---iIere we can 

tind the remains of all epoclis of mankind; Egyptian mummies, war implements stiitted animals, 

birds, fish ; exliibitions of costumes and customs, gems, and otber objects. 




BEAUTIFUL WATERFALLS OF THE YOSEMITE— Here silver streams fall through solid granite 

precipices into the valley below — These streams tiow through the most beautiful pine 

forests in the world and form hundreds of glacier lakes. 



GREAT AMERICAN COMPOSERS 

over 500 compositions, only a few have been published, the flimsiest of 
them at that, ballet suites which reveal him as a master colorist. 

Another composer with a strong national tinge is Henry Schoenfeld, 
of Milwaukee, who, long before Dvorak had called the attention of Amer- 
ican musicians to Southern melodies, embodied them in his "Suite," his 
"Sunny South," and other orchestral works. Indian themes fill the texture 
of his "Three Indians." Finally, his patriotism expressed itself through 
his "American Flag," a festival overture inspired by Rodman Drake's 
familiar poem. 

While Arthur Foote, of Salem, Massachusetts, has written very solid 
compositions, some of them performed with success by the Boston Sym- 
phony Orchestra, his real contribution to American music will probably 
be his choruses for men's voices. For two years the leader of the Glee 
Club of Harvard University, Arthur Foote acquired a decided fondness 
for the color and warmth which characterize college singing. He came 
to appreciate the leaning toward dramatic effect, as well as the sense of wit 
and humor which glee clubs cultivate, and which is not essentially incom- 
patible with real value in music. 

There is also a large body of naturalized foreigners, the best known 
among them being Walter Damrosch, born in Breslau, Germany, and Vic- 
tor Herbert, born in Dublin, who are giving their genius to make American 
musical life one of great activity. The present generation of American 
composers gives the most glowing promise for the future. 

"Let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who makes the 
laws," said a philosopher. This is especially true in America, where the 
popular song is having its vogue. In the short song form, native talent is 
being more and more recognized. 

America will give the world great music, because the national charac- 
teristics of this country embody all the essentials of the Art — nervous en- 
ergy, reserve force, controlled temperament, human passion, dramatic ac- 
tion, intellectual poise, economic ideals, and spiritual power — all of which, 
when directed in the channels of music, will make noble contribution to 
the art which "raises the soul above all earthly storms." 

In the words of Longfellow we may say: 

"Yea, music is the Prophet's art 
Among the gifts that God has sent, 
One of the most magnificent." 




PART V CHAPTER XX 

GREAT AMERICAN EDUCATORS 



"I speak of that learning which makes us acquainted with the boundless 
extent of nature and the universe, and which, even while we remain in this 
world, discovers to us both heaven, earth, and sea." — Cicero. 



■^HE building of a democracy — its success or failure — depends 
upon the average understanding of the average man — a com- 
mon standard of the common knowledge necessary for each to 
assume his portion of the responsibility and perform his part 
of the labors required in the daily task of self-government. 

"Knowledge is power," said Bacon, and Emerson added, *'There is no 
knowledge that is not power," while Addison sounded a warning when he 
declared: *'I would rather excel others in knowledge than in power." 
This is the handwriting on the wall to all nations struggling toward 
democracy — their security rests in free and equal distribution of educa- 
tional opportunities ; in common knowledge as the common property of all 
the people. This problem is of larger economic importance to a nation 
than the distribution of its wealth, for any community in which knowledge 
is the common property of all the people will be able to solve wisely all 
other problems that may arise. 

Emerson defines knowledge as "the amassed thought and experience 
of innumerable minds," but we would add — ^placed at the disposal and 
within reach of all the people all the time. Education of the fortunate 
few develops an educational autocracy which is equally as dangerous as 
financial oligarchy or industrial feudalism. The education of the masses 
is the whole secret of democracy, and self-government cannot exist with- 
out it. 

This is the foundation stone upon which American nationality is be- 
ing constructed — the free public school, which is perhaps America's great- 
est contribution to civilization. There are to-day more than 20,000,000 
children in the public schools of the United States — raw material being 
molded into units capable of self -development, self-control, and self-gov- 
ernment. This is costing the nation annually more than $800,000,000, 
and it is the biggest dividend-paying investment that a nation has ever 
made. It is estimated that we expend $2,000 on every child in the 
United States in equipping it for self-support, to send it out into the 
world to develop the natural resources of the earth and thus increase the 

460 



GREAT AMERICAN EDUCATORS 

wealtJi of the nation. Each child is itself a mine of hidden wealth for 
which the public school acts as a prospector and endeavors to strike a 
paying vein of natural wealth. The public school system is a co-operative, 
profit-sharing plan, whereby all the people as common stockholders under- 
take to develop the natural resources of their offspring, thus increasing not 
only the earning power of the individual but multiplying the wealth of 
the nation many fold. The discovery of native genius in one child in a 
generation may contribute billions of dollars — incalculable wealth — to 
human society. "The learned man," as Phsedrus said, "always has riches 
in himself." 

The origin and development of this educational system, like that of 
all other momentous ideas, were born of many struggles and much oppo- 
sition. Education for many centuries, until the American idea was es- 
tablished, was left largely to the church. It was a monopoly controlled 
by a few privileged persons and dispensed only to those favored ones who 
could pay for it, or a matter of charity. From the earliest times the church 
encouraged learning and there were many great mediaeval universities. Its 
first liberation began when the church discovered that knowledge was one 
of the attributes of God and the common inheritance of all the human 
race, and undertook to administer it as an adjunct to its ministry to the 
spiritual forces, as the first step in finding God. 

When the first Dutch traders came to New Amsterdam and the first 
English colonizers came to Jamestown they were in search of increased 
wealth and had no intention of founding a government. The earlier 
Spanish and French explorers were precursors of commerce and trade — 
not education. The Pilgrim migration to Plymouth and that of the Puri- 
tans to Boston were wholly for purposes of liberation from autocracy. 
They came to establish religious ideals, but brought with them also an 
almost complete indifference to educational problems. It was not many 
years, however, before the Puritans recognized that there could be no 
freedom of religious expression without free knowledge. It was left to 
them to establish the first free elementary school, the first free Latin school, 
and the first university. The records of Boston show that in 1635 it was 
agreed upon "that our brother Philemon Pormort shall be entreated to be- 
come schoolmaster for the teaching and nurturing of children with us." 
For the support of that school the principal inhabitants of the town sub- 
scribed from four shillings to ten pounds each. Pormort's school still ex- 
ists as the Boston Latin school. 

It was on Christmas Day, in 1641, that the first real free school re- 
ceiving an allowance "from the common stock of the town" was opened 
in New Haven, three years after the foundation of the city by a Massa- 

461 



AJVIERICA: TIJE LAND WE LOVE 

chusetts company. This school had as its first teacher Ezekiel Cheever, 
America's first great educator. From the age of twenty-three when he 
arrived in Boston till he died in his 94th year, Cheever devoted all his en- 
ergy to the training of youth and to devising educational methods. 
Cheever wrote the first text-books ever published in America. When he 
died at his post the great divine, Cotton Mather, delivered the funeral 
sermon and in speaking of Cheever's services said: "Ink is too vile a 
liquor; liquid gold should fill the pen by which such things are told." 

Education, however, was an aristocracy in America for these first 
hundred years or more. Massachusetts and New Hampshire were the only 
places having a few free schools and those institutions had to wage a bitter 
struggle for existence. The American Revolution awakened the first real 
consciousness of the need of liberal education among the people. During 
the period following the war the typical New England Academy was 
originated. One of those institutions, Dummer Academy, had as one of its 
pupils Samuel Phillips Andover, to whom American learning is deeply 
indebted; he was instrumental in establishing Phillips Andover and Phil- 
lips Exeter Academies. 

The greatest pioneer of free education outside of New England was 
the Governor of New York, George Clinton, who constantly tried to im- 
press upon the people the necessity of training the minds of the young for 
the duties of free citizenship. It was not until 1812, however, that the 
movement which he had initiated in 1787 triumphed over indifference and 
prejudice and received the attention necessary for the establishment of 
free schools. The growth of democratic ideals found its reflex in the pub- 
lic school system. Daniel Webster sounded its depths when in his oration 
at the laying of the cornerstone of Bunker Hill Monument, he declared: 
"Knowledge is the only fountain, both of love and the principles of 
human liberty." 

It was about the middle of last century that there appeared a man 
devoted to educational freedom and inspired by his comprehension of its 
power as a democratizing influence. To Horace Mann, America owes 
the absolutely modem and progressive trend which characterizes all her 
schools. To realize what forceful influence this great educator wielded 
over his times we only have to remember that the British Parliament or- 
dered one of his reports on education printed and distributed all over 
England and that the German government had his fifth and seventh re- 
ports translated and printed in several large editions. 

Born in poverty, Horace Mann (1796-1859) struggled to acquire a 
little education while working on a farm in spring, summer and autumn 
and while braiding straw for hats all winter long. Until he was fifteen 

462 




FIRST UNIVERSITY IN AMERICA — Glimpse of cainpns at Harvard, in t'ambridse, Massachu- 
setts — ^It was founded in IGSG as centre of American culture — 'The institution has 
about 5,000 students — Its productive funds are nearly $30,000,000. 




HISTORU' CAMPUS AT YALE UNIVERSITY' — This institution was founded m l.(i1 
located in New Haven, Connecticut, where it has about 4,000 students^ 
Its productive funds and endowments are about !?1C,000,000, 



It is 




UISTORIC UNIVEUhilTY IN TIIE SOUTH — ^Washington and Lee UDiversity at I>exiii.uton, 

Virginia — Chartered as "Liberty Hall Academy" in 17S2 ; became Washington College iu 

ISlo — General Kol)i'rt E. Lee became its president at close of the Civil War. 




UNIVERSITY FOUNDED BY THOMAS JEFFERSON— University of Virginia, located at Char- 
lottesville — Established by the State legislature in LSI!) from a plan by Jefferson — The 
buildings form a picturesque quadrangle — Institution has about 1,000 students. 



GREAT AMERICAN EDUCATORS 

years old, he never attended school more than ten weeks a year. The 
privations which he had to endure in order to go through college unaided 
made him almost a physical wreck, but his indomitable will carried him 
over all obstacles. After graduation, he found employment in a law of- 
fice. At thirty, he was a member of the legislature and at once stepped 
into prominence. Disdainful of the business opportunities which his seat 
in the House could have secured for him, Horace Mann unselfishly gave 
his time and thought to educational reforms. 

There has been no other instance in the parliamentary history of any 
State where a born leader, a man of commanding ability, of recognized 
skill in law and politics, devoted himself to legislative life for years with 
only one purpose — to pass laws for the benefit of children, idiots, the in- 
sane, the deaf, and the blind. Elected to the State Senate and almost 
immediately after to the presidency of that body, Horace Mann unhesi- 
tatingly abandoned what might have been a brilliant political career to 
accept the modest position of secretary of the State Board of Education. 
His reports created a violent outburst of indignation among the smug 
schoolmasters of New England, who felt to quote Mann's words, "driven 
out of the Paradise which their self-esteem had erected for them." Op- 
position to his ideas became venomous. 

Fortunately, men of liberal minds like Josiah Quincy, Charles Sum- 
ner, Edward Everett, John G. Whittier, Theodore Parker, and others, 
pledged themselves, with a few prominent merchants, to protect Horace 
Mann against the machinations of the schoolmasters who had all but won 
over the legislature to their conservative views. Charles Sumner himself 
gave bond for the expenses that Horace Mann's proposed reforms would 
entail. The great educator began his work in earnest. Better teachers, 
better schoolhouses, and better books — such was the first part of his pro- 
gramme. Normal schools for the training of teachers was its first corol- 
lary. Mann started on a campaign tour of all the cities and towns in his 
State. He gave everywhere educational addresses and aroused the public 
and especially the newspapers from their indifference to matters of 
liberal education. 

This American educator proclaimed that the day had come when the 
school system should be emancipated from its autocratic pedagogy. He 
asserted the rights of the pupil; he declared that flogging should cease; 
that fads should be eliminated from elementary schools; that schools 
should be placed in the hands of experienced superintendents; that the 
school year should be longer, and that more of the public moneys should 
be spent for public education. 

These principles, which no intelligent person would even discuss In 

465 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

our days, were revolutionary to Mann's contemporaries — to them he was 
a radical and a fanatic. At fifty-six, Horace Mann found himself de- 
feated both as an educator and as a politician. Poor, broken in health, 
he left the State that had refused to recognize his talent and accepted the 
presidency of a small college in Ohio. There again the trustees soon made 
life unbearable for him. But during the six years of his presidency he 
labored to strengthen the faith and inspire the devotion of thousands of 
young men and women all over the West. 

Mann died, however, in the knowledge that he had won a great vic- 
tory. To-day the leaders of thought, men of character and weight in every 
line of endeavor, recognize in glowing terms the debt which they owe to 
Horace Mann. His last utterance was typical of his spirit: "Be ashamed 
to die until you have won some victory for humanity." 

The next progressive step in the educational emancipation of the 
American people introduces a woman — a woman with only the most rudi- 
mentary schooling, who never could write well, who never was a brilliant 
speaker, who never received much recognition in her day, and whose highest 
salary throughout her entire life was $260 a year. This woman was Mary 
Lyon (1787-1849), the mother of educational privileges for American 
women. Something of her life is told in the chapter on "Great American 
Women." It is sufficient here to state that sixty years ago there was not 
one endowed seminary for girls on this continent. Now girls have at their 
disposal hundreds of colleges, seminaries, and normal schools. The first 
seminary was founded by Mary Lyon, who, after years of downright beg- 
ging for the cause of education, finally collected $60,000 wherewith she 
established Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts in the autumn of 
1837. The opposition she encountered was very powerful, for in those 
days it was thought wrong, if not immoral, for girls to attend school. In 
fact, as late as 1810 there was no provision anywhere in America for the 
education of girls. Mary Lyon was submitted to much ridicule for insist- 
ing on the Mount Holyoke scholars doing a certain amount of housework 
every day. In spite of all the criticisms, pupils flocked to the new institu- 
tion. The American public soon began to extend its endorsement to Mary 
Lyon's favorite saying : "Educate the women, and men will be educated.'* 

The work of developing the normal school system was promulgated 
by David P. Page (1810-1848), who has deserved the name of "The 
Normal School Leader." No book on the subject of education has been 
more widely read and pondered over by American teachers than Page's 
"Theory and Practise of Teaching." He, too, encountered fierce opposi- 
tion on the part of old-fashioned teachers and politicians. The normal 
school idea was considered as visionary. Page had to imitate Mann's 

466 



(GREAT AMERICAN EDUCATORS 

tactics and present his case to the public in a series of addresses throughout 
New York State. Exhausted by the fight, he died in his thirty-eighth year. 
His book, however, has remained the gospel of the teaching profession. 

To Henry Barnard (1811-1900), Connecticut and Rhode Island owe 
their system of free schools which for the past fifty years have ranked 
with the best in the country. A lasting monument to his fame is the 
"American Journal of Education," which he founded and supported, sink- 
ing ultimately his entire private fortune in the venture. The files of that 
journal contain an enormous amount of information about education the 
world over; no such series of books on education had ever been published. 

A notable name in the West is that of Newton Bateman (1822- 
1897). No higher tribute can be paid to him than to characterize him 
as educational leaders of this country have done — "The Horace Mann of 
the West or the Abraham Lincoln of education." Many eminent men 
arose with the liberation of education: John Dudley Philbrick (1818- 
1886) is recognized as the greatest City School Superintendent; Edward 
A. Sheldon, founder of the Oswego Teachers' Training School ; James P. 
Wickersham is Pennsylvania's famous educator; his book on "School Man- 
agement" remained a standard for over a quarter of a century and has been 
translated into many foreign languages, being used at present by all the 
normal schools in Japan. Due homage must be rendered to men like 
Mark Hopkins, Frederick A. P. Barnard, and Charles Finney; their lives 
were spent in building up a certain institution of learning rather than to- 
ward the introduction of educational reforms of general interest. 

The future of the American nation rests largely in the control of the 
public school system. It is here that we are training each generation to 
assume the responsibilities of government. Here we find in embryo the 
business men of the future, the industrial leaders, the statesmen, the me- 
chanics, tradesmen, and professional men — all must come from the ranks 
of our schools. We have established in this country the democracy of 
education — and it is to this principle that we must subscribe : Education 
is democracy; it is emancipation first from ignorance, then from oppres- 
sion by others, then from bondage to self, and finally it is a complete spir- 
itual awakening. "Every addition to true knowledge," said Mann, "is an 
addition to human power" and consequently to the ultimate greatness and 
permanency of national existence. 



467 



PART V CHAPTER XXI 



GREAT AMERICAN WOMEN 



"Woman's empire, holier, more refined, 

Moulds, moves, and sways the fallen yet God-breathed mind, 

Lifting the earth-crushed heart to hope and heaven." 

—Hale's "Empire of Woman." 



E 



''"H"^ ARTH'S noblest thing," remarks Lowell, "is a woman per- 
fected." And as Macaulay reflected: "The most beautiful 
object in the world is a beautiful woman" — a woman beauti- 
ful in character, in intellectual poise, in achievement. This 
epitomizes the American woman to-day and her service to the nation — 
"first In war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of her countrymen." 

The most significant spiritual fact of the Twentieth Century is the 
struggle going in the breast of humanity to balance and readjust sex. 
The whole human race is at last becoming vaguely conscious that it can- 
not move onward without this readjustment. Therefore, an entirely new 
conception of the meaning of sex, and of the relation of men and women 
to each other, are being born out of this struggle. Woman's economic 
freedom, which has slumbered for ages, awakes, responsive to the forces 
of the stern world of man. The change startles the world, for it is shat- 
tering age-long customs, and one of the results of this revolution is that 
woman is emblazoning her name in the light of action and history. More 
women are actually under the light of public attention at this moment, 
because of their achievements, than there were through the whole two thou- 
sand years preceding the Nineteenth Century. 

Who are the famous American women, and how did they acquire their 
fame*? According to Mrs. Cora Sutton Castle, who is regarded as an au- 
thority on this subject, there are in all history the names of 868 women, 
each of whose achievements were sufficient to give her permanent record. 
Of this number seventy-five are American women, a very large number 
considering the short history of the United States. Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe is the most widely known American woman in history. 

It is a remarkable fact that, with the increase of population of the 
American people by every ten millions, their increase in eminent women 
is far more than corresponding. The status of the American woman has 
so changed that her world fifty years ago is as much a stranger to her 
world to-day as the Tenth Century is to the Twentieth Century. This 

468 




OLDEST COLLEGE IN THE SOUTHERN STATES William and Mary College was founded at 

Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1G9.J — Second oldest college in United States, with 

Harvard first — Eirst American college to establish chairs of law and history. 




GLIMPSE OF PRINCETON r'NIViatSlTY — Tliis institution was founded in Princeton, New 

Jersey, in 1746 — It has nearly 2,000 wtudents — Its productive funds are nearly $6,000,000 — 

Woodrcrw Wilson was at one time President of tbis University. 




FIRST COLLEGE FOR WOMEN IN AMERICA — Vassal' College is located at Poughkeepsie, 

New York — It was founded in 1861 "to accomplish for young women what other colleges 

are accomplishing for young men" — This institution has about 1.200 students. 




EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN AMERICA — Smith College is located at Northampton, Mass- 
achusetts — It was founded in 1871 and was among the first to recognize music and 
art among the qualifications for a degree — It has over 1.700 students. 



GREAT AMERICAN WOMEN 

great change in her position has been brought about by the revolution in 
her education and the wide extension of her employment. No woman is 
making such progress as the American woman. 

Here only brief sketches of a few names taken from history can be 
given. The eminent living women are so numerous that it would require 
more than a chapter of this book simply to mention their names. The fol- 
lowing sketches are of nine representatives of famous American women. 

The first of these was Deborah Sampson, a school teacher born in 
Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1758. At the age of twenty, she as- 
sumed male attire and joined the Revolutionary army. She enrolled un- 
der the name of Robert Shirtliff and was one of the first volunteers in 
the company of Captain Nathan Thayer, of Medway, Massachusetts. 
She took part in many brisk actions and was twice wounded, once by a 
sword cut on the left side of the head. Her companions called her Molly 
in allusion to her bashful behavior and her beardless face, but to the last 
day she escaped detection, even when she was taken with brain fever and 
almost died. Finally a physician discovered her patriotic fraud and sent 
her with a personal letter to George Washington's headquarters. The 
great man received her without speaking one single word and handed her 
a discharge from service together with a round sum of money. After the 
termination of the war she married Benjamin Gannett, of Sharon, Penn- 
sylvania. When Washington was President she received a letter inviting 
her to visit the seat of the Government. Congress was then in session, and 
during her stay at the capitol a bill was passed granting her a pension in 
addition to certain lands which she was to receive for her services to the 
country in a military capacity. 

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), who was the most brilliant of New 
England women, came from a family in which there had been many men 
of unusual intelligence. All her life she was fortunate enough to enjoy 
the acquaintance and the friendship of the leading people of her day. 
Her first meeting with Emerson, when she was about twenty-five years old, 
had a decisive influence upon the whole course of her life. He saw at once 
what a superior woman she was, invited her to Concord, and, when it be- 
came necessary for her, owing to her father's death, to earn a living, Emer- 
son introduced her to many people whom she taught or before whom she 
lectured. Her first literary effort was a translation of Eckerman's con- 
versations with Goethe, when she was only twenty-eight years of age. 
One year later she became editor of the Dial, which was published to spread 
the doctrine of transcendentalism. After she had held that position for 
five years, she was invited by Horace Greeley to take charge of the 
Tribune's literary department. Some of the essays she published in the 

471 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

Dial and the Tribune: "Summer on the Lakes," "Woman in the 19th Cen- 
tury," "Papers on Literature and Art," have been frequently reprinted and 
live in our literature as classics of their kind. 

Margaret Fuller's character made her perhaps more powerful and 
better known than her writings. Her great love and her helpful influence, 
her active mind, her strong nature left a very deep influence on all those 
with whom she ever associated. At thirty-six she went to Europe and 
added many great names to her list of friends. In England she was most 
intimate with Thomas Carlyle and in France with George Sand. While 
in Italy she married Marquis Ossoli and, as Rome was then under siege, 
she took charge of one of the hospitals and distinguished herself for her 
zeal and devotion. Soon after she decided to return to America, but the 
vessel on which she sailed was wrecked off Fire Island and she was drowned 
with her husband and child. 

Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) was one of the first women in this coun- 
try to take a decided stand against slavery. Before the names of Garri- 
son and his friends were heard, she began to use her influence in favor 
of abolitionism. She taught and at a very early age preached in Quaker 
meeting houses on slavery, temperance, and pacificism, and gained so 
much popularity that she journeyed over the country addressing groups of 
Friends. She and her husband were appointed, together with Garrison, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Stanton, to represent America at the World's Anti-slav- 
ery Convention in London in 1839, but with the other women she was ex- 
cluded from participation in the meetings. By Garrison's efforts, "break- 
fasts" were arranged at which they were allowed to express their opinions 
before the members of the congress. Lucretia Mott believed that women 
should have perfect equality with men, and, when the first Woman's Rights 
convention met at Genesee Falls, her husband presided and she proved 
one of the most active members. Besides being an eloquent speaker and 
an able worker, Mrs. Mott was a model housekeeper, who trained her 
children carefully, and loved her husband whose views coincided so com- 
pletely with her own. 

The career of Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) is a romance of philan- 
thropy which the world cannot afford to forget. She has been called the 
most useful and distinguished woman that America has produced. As the 
founder of institutions of mercy she has no peer in history. She was first 
a school teacher and then a governess in the family of the famous Dr. 
Channing, but ill health compelled her to abandon an educational ca- 
reer. In spite of her weakened condition, however, she engaged in phil- 
anthropic work. The first thing that she did was to improve the condition 
of the women inmates of the East Cambridge jail, where she taught Sun- 

472 



GREAT AMERICAN WOMEN 

day School. For two years, note-book in hand, she traveled from town 
to town, investigating the condition of the various jails, after which she 
sent seventeen appeals to as many legislatures, describing the condition of 
prisoners kept in "cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens, chained, naked, beaten 
with rods and lashed into obedience." 

The result of her exposures was the enlargement of three asylums, 
at Worcester, Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, and Utica, New 
York; the establishment of thirteen asylums, one in each of the following 
States: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennes- 
see, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Maryland; and the 
Hospital for Insane Soldiers in Washington, D. C. She proposed, in 1850, 
a larger scheme of philanthropy than had ever been projected before. She 
petitioned Congress to appropriate 12,000,000 acres of public lands for the 
benefit of the indigent insane, deaf mutes and blind. The bill passed both 
houses, but President Pierce vetoed it. Dorothea Dix served as su- 
perintendent of women nurses during the four years of the Civil War, 
after which she returned to her former work and continued it until 1881, 
promoting the erection of hospitals and visiting those that had already been 
established. She built a hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, and died there 
in 1887. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-1896), the most famous of Amierlcan 
women, was the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which appeared nine 
years before the Civil War and was undoubtedly the most widely circu- 
lated book in America. More than any other writings and more than 
all the speeches of all the abolition orators did it shape public opinion 
in the North as far as slavery was concerned. It was "Uncle Tom's Cabin'* 
that built up the Republican Party and raised volunteers when the great 
conflict became unavoidable. Harriet Beecher Stowe was the daugh- 
ter of the great divine, Lyman Beecher, and she was one of the most gifted 
members of the famous Beecher family. While in Cincinnati she mar- 
ried Professor Stowe, then president of Lane Theological Seminary, which 
her father had helped to found. She lived for some time on the boundary 
line of the slave States, and many a time she saw fugitive slaves who had 
crossed the Ohio River from the Kentucky shore dragged back to the life 
they hated in spite of what white people could do for them. The Aboli- 
tionist party was organized then, but was despised, even in the North. 

Mrs. Stowe thought that if the world could realize the negroes' suf- 
ferings and the degrading effect which slavery had on white people, pub- 
lic opinion might change. It was then that she conceived the idea of 
writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and though very poor and obliged to care 
for several young children, she undertook her great work. Before this 

473 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

she had written stories, but her name had never attracted much notice. 
Her book appeared in instalments in the Washington National Era. Be- 
sides creating a tremendous impression all over the States, "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin" brought its author fame and wealth. The most eminent people 
in the world entered into correspondence with her and her success as a 
literary woman was assured. Out of the fifteen volumes which she pub- 
lished, only two have retained a certain popularity. 

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), like Lucretia Mott, was born a 
Quakeress in Adams, Massachusetts. She taught school from the age 
of fifteen to thirty, and then became very active in the total abstinence 
and anti-slavery movements. After the Civil War, she devoted herself 
entirely to the wom-an suffrage movement. In 1868 she founded The 
Revolution, a women's rights paper, which she edited for three years. 
She suffered valiantly for the cause which she advocated, and in 1872 de- 
cided to test the election law by casting a vote. She was arrested, tried, 
and fined, but this did not discourage her in any way. She spoke through- 
out the United States and England, took part in many State campaigns, 
and appeared before several congressional committees. She contributed 
to the leading magazines, and, with Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and 
Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, published an extensive history of the suffrage 
movement in three volumes. 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), who had attended the Lon- 
don Anti-slavery Congress with Lucretia Mott, was the wife of an ardent 
abolitionist, Henry B. Stanton. She had for her time an unusual educa- 
tion, having studied mathematics, Latin, and Greek and having won a 
scholarship. She graduated at the head of the class at the Johnstown 
Academy and felt very indignant when she was not allowed to enter col- 
lege, although the boys, who in scholarship had ranked after her, were 
granted that privilege. She helped her husband in his anti-slavery work 
and soon took up the cause of women's rights under the influence of the 
little Quakeress, Lucretia Mott. The way in which she had been treated 
at the London Convention aroused in her the indignation which she had 
felt at the end of her academic course over the disabilities of women, and 
she resolved to do all that there was in her power to have woman's posi- 
tion changed. It was partly due to her efforts that the first Women's 
Rights Conference met at Seneca Falls in 1848. Ever afterward, she de- 
voted all her time and energy to creating a feeling favorable to the grant- 
ing of equal rights to women. 

Frances E. Willard ( 1839-1898) was the greatest woman orator that 
this country has ever produced and one of the greatest woman leaders of her 
time. She possessed eloquence, pathos, and humor to such a degree that 

474 




T'XIVI.RSITIES IX Till': S( (111 I\Vi:si' — I'his is the University of Texas, locatod at Austin — 

It was founded in 1S83 — The University is conducted by the State and has about 2,7(10 

students — It exerts a wide influence in the affairs of the Southwest. 




CLOISTP^R CAltUKX AT I'.KVX MAWK COLLKCJE — Tliis educational institution for wonii'n is 

located at I'.rvn Mawr, Pennsylvania — It was founded in IS.SO and lias about 500 students 

— This photograph was taken during an open-air play near the library. 




BIRTHPLACE OF FEMALE EDUCATION IN AMERICA— This is Monut Ilolyoke l\ill(',i;e at 
Soutli Iladley, Massachusetts — It was founded as a seminary by Mary Lyon in 1S:JG and 
became a college in 1881 — This institution is a pioneer in female education. 




AMERICAN COLLEGE GIRLS AT WICLLESLEY— This iiistit nti..n is lo.atr.l at Wollesley, Mass- 
achusetts — It was founded in lS7r> and numbers about l.r>0(i students — This picturesque 
scene shows the girls rowing on the lake, a feature of their student life, 



GREAT AMERICAN WOMEN 

she was surpassed by few platform speakers, and she threw into the great 
reform work for temperance an indomitable masculine energy. Inciden- 
tally, Miss Willard made a great speech at a Woman's Missionary meeting 
in Chicago in 1870 and spoke of her vision of a new chivalry — the modern 
crusade which the women of her country should enter upon ; the chivalry of 
justice; the justice that gives to woman to be all that God meant her to be. 
The next day a wealthy, well-known Methodist called on her and en- 
treated her to use the remarkable gift that she undoubtedly possessed and 
to speak out to the world that which God had put into her heart. She ap- 
pealed to her mother for advice, and that large hearted woman told her 
to enter upon the work. The next day she addressed a great audience 
and on the following morning she awoke to find that her eloquence had 
made her famous. 

The great temperance movement swept the country in 1874, and 
Miss Willard was the torch-bearer. She was made President of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Illinois in 1878. Her eloquence 
now reached the ears of the habitues of the saloons, and, looking into their 
pinched faces, she was reminded of the hunger which she had suffered in 
the last year or two while working without money. The next year she was 
elected President of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
and in 1881 she made a tour of all the Southern States, and not once did 
she offend the South. She was the first to conceive the international 
scheme of binding women in a strong bond of union the world over. It 
was this grand conception that culminated in the magnificent demonstra- 
tion accorded her in Albert Hall, London, in 1897. She was called "the 
best loved woman in the United States." Congress gave her statue a 
place in Statuary Hall in the rotunda of the Capitol, and she was called 
the "Uncrowned Queen of America" on that occasion. 

Clara Barton (1821-1912) began her career as a school teacher, 
and later, while working in the Patent Office in Washington, she discov- 
ered her real vocation when the first train loaded with wounded pulled 
into Washington on April 19th, 1861. She set out to nurse and feed 
the victims of the war and to cheer them up by reading to them news- 
paper accounts of the actions in which they had been injured. This, how- 
ever, did not satisfy her. She applied for a pass beyond the firing line 
and obtained it. No one employed her, and no one encouraged her at 
first, but it was not long before the quartermaster recognized the value of 
her work and began to honor all her requisitions. She actually organized 
the hospital service of the Northern armies and compiled carefully the 
hospital lists. After the war, she conducted a vast correspondence, ac- 
counting to inquirers for over thirty thousand men dead or alive. 

477 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

When in Geneva in 1869, she heard of the International Red Cross 
Society, which had been recently founded. A year later, she could watch 
its wonderful work during the Franco-Prussian War, in which she served 
as a nurse. After her return to this country, she labored for five years to 
found an American branch of the Red Cross. In 1882 President Arthur 
showed himself willing to second her efforts. 

The first American Red Cross Society sprang into existence, with Clara 
Barton as its president. She modified the aims of the society, to enable it 
to render services in time of peace. At present that great society ministers 
to all those that need its services. Its stamps are sold to help the con- 
sumptive, and, wherever a great conflagration breaks out, or wherever a 
flood or an earthquake makes thousands homeless, the Red Cross is there 
ready for work of mercy. 

One of the most useful and best beloved women of this country was 
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who passed away a few years ago. The name 
of Dr. Maria Mitchell also well deserves to be included in this list. 
While in charge of the chair of astronomy at Vassar, she discovered a 
new comet, a discovery regarded of so much importace in European sci- 
entific circles that on her visit abroad she was accorded great distinction. 
Dr. Mitchell was one of the two first American women to receive the 
honor of being admitted as members to the American Society for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, the other woman being Mrs. Elvira Lincoln Phelps, 
who distinguished herself by popularizing the study of the science of bi- 
ology a generation ago. 

Every profession and vocation now contains the names of eminent 
women. Within the last thirty years, more than twenty-five American 
women have attained eminent distinction in literature. Some of these 
names are household words among the American people. There is not a 
well read girl in the country and scarcely a well read man who has not 
perused the stories of Louisa M. Alcott. It is true that she belongs to an 
early generation, but her work is still perennially vital in the heart of the 
American people, which is more than can be said for some of the eminent 
male writers who were her contemporaries. And every one is familiar with 
the names of Mrs. Spofford, Miss Orne Jewett, Mrs. May Halleck Foote, 
Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, "Octave Thanet" (Miss Alice 
French), "Charles Edgebert Craddock" (Miss Murfree) and the author of 
"The Quick and the Dead," Constance Fennimore Woolsen, Frances Hodg- 
sen Burnett, Mary Mapes Dodge, Mrs. Deland, Alice Cary, Louise Imogen 
Ginncy, Edith Thomas, "Olive Thome" Miller, Mrs. Jackson, and not 
the least among them is the American woman in Italy who assumed the 
famous pen name "Ouida." 

478 



GREAT AMERICAN WOMEN 

All these names belong to the history of American letters, and the 
works of their successors now crowd our libraries and book stalls. They 
are a still more numerous company, for there are now more women writing 
in America than there were women writing in all the world forty years ago. 
And among them such women as Agnes Replier, Edith Wharton, Gertrude 
Atherton, "Kate Douglas Wiggin," Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mrs. Wil- 
kins Freeman, Mary Johnson, Mrs. Glasgow, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Ida 
Tarbell, Elizabeth Jordan, and Elizabeth Bisland deserve to be mentioned 
for at least the contemporary fame which they have won. 

And there are a number of other women like Helen Gould Shepard, 
Jane Addams, Mrs. Russell Sage, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, and Sister Rose 
Hawthorne, who have become famous on account of their great usefulness 
to the American people. These women are much loved by the people. 

One of the most encouraging features in the progress of woman in 
America is the important position she is now taking in the advancement of 
science. Miss Edith Mosher has made a reputation for herself in the study 
of trees in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mrs. D. D. Gailliard is well-known 
in the world of botany for the work she has done with orchids at Panama. 
Mrs. Myrtle Shepherd Francis, of Ventura, California, is now known as the 
*'female Burbank." She experiments with old flowers. Dr. Elizabeth 
Babcock and Miss Alice Johnson have rendered excellent service to science 
at the Carnegie Institute, Boston, in their work in nutrition and diet. The 
science of archaeology has acknowledged its debt to Miss Edith M. Hall 
in her noted work at the University of Pennsylvania. Wellesley College 
has also contributed original results of value to this science. In the As- 
tronomical Observatory of the Carnegie Institute on Mt. Wilson, six 
women are employed on the staff. Miss Ella Flagg Young, the Su- 
perintendent of the Chicago Schools, and chosen a few years ago as 
residing officer of the National Educational Association, is an eminent 
woman in the field of education. From no list of contemporary famous 
American women could be omitted the name of Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, 
who has led the battle for woman suffrage. Dr. Shaw belongs to the min- 
istry. The whole country knows the distinguished Washington lawyer, 
Mrs. Belva Lockwood, who was the first woman to practice before the Su- 
preme Court of the United States. Nearly every State Supreme Court 
has its women practitioners. Mrs. Mary Margaret Bartelme is the pre- 
siding judge of the Childrens' Court in Chicago and well-known for her 
great tact and wisdom. 

Some of the women mentioned above have not historically won fame, 
but they have achieved contemporary eminence. Many of them have done 
more than their famous historic predecessors. 

479 



PART VI CHAPTER XXII 

GRANDEUR OF AMERICAN 
SCENERY 



'All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 

—Pope. 



THE Americans can proclaim with Milton: "Accuse not Nature, 
she hath done her part; do thou but thine I" The American con- 
tinent is the garden-land of the world; its beautiful rivers flow 
through fertile valleys, garlanded in multi-colored foliage; its 
majestic mountains lift their heads far into the sky like great watch-towers. 
Nature has reflected all her moods on the American continent. 

While the blue seas sweep the southern shores under drooping palms 
and tropical skies, the snow-clad peaks stand guard over the ice-bound bor- 
ders of the Arctic north. Every degree of temperature — the fruits and 
bloom of all climates, in contrast with frigid barrenness, make this continent 
a veritable planet in itself. There are rocky pinnacles, chasms, glaciers, 
extinct volcanoes, geysers, canons, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, plains — all the 
creations of nature and geological wizardry. 

Americans are discovering that American scenery is just as picturesque 
and much more grandiose and wild than the Alps of Switzerland. Swit- 
zerland has no such groves on its mountain-sides, and even the giant cedars 
of Libanus cannot compare with the big trees of California. Where else 
could one find those chasms of fearful depth and length for which a new 
word canon had to be added to the vocabulary"? 

All the savage beauty of the Norwegian fjords adorns the coast of 
Maine. Mount Desert, some hundred miles from Portland, surrounded 
by the sea and crowned with mountains, affords the only instance along 
our Atlantic coast where mountains stand in close neighborhood to the sea. 
Upon its shores are masses of cyclopean rocks heaped up in titanic dis- 
order, reminding the onlooker of the most picturesque medieval fortresses 
of the Old World. This island is about one hundred square miles in area. 
It bears thirteen peaks, the highest being Green Mountain, from which the 
view is most magnificent, for the forests of Mount Desert are crowded with 
evergreens, tall firs, and spruce trees, and the slopes of every peak descend 
into beautiful blue lakes. 

Passing from Maine into New Hampshire, the traveler, seeking relief 
from summer heat in the lowlands, can range over a high tableland forty- 

480 




STTTENDOTTS MOUNTAIN CANYONS IN GREAT WEST— Tlic lioyal Oorso in Colorado— More thau 

200 majestic peaks lift their heads into the clouds — rerpendlcular gorges drop a mile in depth. 

Great railroads wind their way through these mountains. 





NATURE'S MASTERriECE IN ROCKY MOUNTAINS — Here we look upon the seenic grandeur of the "Amer- 
ican Alps" — Its beauties are equal to those of Switzerland or Italy — Jlere 130 snow-capped 
peaks pierce the clouds — Fiftj peaks rise above 14,000 feet. 









FAMOUS PAINTING BY AN AMERICAN ARTIST — This canvas is from the celebrated collection by Albert 
Bierstadt (1830-1902) — His paintings of the scenic grandeur of America gave him interna- 
tional reputation — He was elected to the National Academy in 1860. 





OaAiND CAAION OF COLORADO— It is ;^00 miles long, nearly a mile deep, and about ten miles 

wide from rim to rim — A river flows throusli this gigantic gorge — Its rocky sides are 

magnificently sculptured wltli pinnacles and so-called temples. 



/ 



GRANDEUR OF AMERICAN SCENERY 

five miles in length by thirty in width, on which rise some of the highest 
mountains of Atlantic regions — Mount Washington, 6,285 feet, Mounts 
Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, all above 5,000 feet in height. Sev- 
eral valleys, watered by streams which run into the Connecticut or Canadian 
lakes, lie in this wilderness. The most picturesque of all is the Saco Valley, 
which spreads toward Lake Winnipiseoges, surrounded by the Sandwich 
and Cesipee hills, of which White Face and Chocorua are the loftiest peaks. 
The most impressive view of Mount Washington is from Mount Monroe. 
This peak rises in a lofty cone and shines with bare, gray stones across a 
wide plateau strewn with boulders. This elevated plain is about 1,000 
feet above the sea. Patches of grass and hardy wild flowers appear in the 
crevices of the rocks, and now and then one comes upon small tarns or 
mountain ponds. 

The Lake of the Clouds, the head-water of the Amoonoosuc, is the 
most beautiful of these crystal waters. Passing around the side of Mount 
Monroe, one looks into a frightful abyss known as Bates' Gulf. Clouds 
and masses of vapor hang against its precipitous sides, and gigantic rocks 
strew the bottom of the gorge. Opposite Eagle Cliff there rises Profile 
Mountain, covered with forests far up its side, over which, looking down 
the valley from a height of 2,000 feet, appears the wonder of the region — 
the Old Stone Face as clearly defined as if chiseled by a sculptor. Haw- 
thorne has written some of his most charming pages about this curious mass 
of granite blocks, which form an overhanging brow, a large, clearly defined 
nose, and a sharp, decisive chin. 

We must now leave New England, with its many beautiful vistas of 
mountain, lake, and seacoast and pass into the valley of the Hudson. This 
river rivals in beauty the most picturesque parts of the Rhine and of the 
Danube valleys. The Old World streams are romantic in their feudal 
castles that rise on every hill, commanding their banks, but the Hudson is 
a more powerful stream than the Rhine or Danube, and the magnificent 
Palisades are higher and more savage than the Rhineland hills. For thirty 
miles or more, their wall of vertical and columned rock rises to a height of 
three hundred and sometimes five hundred feet, attaining their greatest 
magnitude in enormous and jutting buttresses, that thrust themselves into 
the river opposite Ossining. Here and there, the wall is cut by deep and 
narrow ravines. Through these fissures in the cliffs are gained some of the 
most perfect views of river and landscape in the world. 

The region is rich with legendary and historical associations. There 
is Stony Point, where Anthony Wayne led his men through the July mid- 
night in 1776; Treason Hill, where Arnold, the traitor, matured his plans 
and where Andre, the spy, took the papers that betrayed the secret. Finally, 

485 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

the whole region is peopled with creatures of Irving's fancy — Rip Van 
Winkle, Icabod Crane, the "headless horseman," and all the folk of the 
Catskill legends. 

We find many interesting hills and streams and picturesque lakes along 
the southern Palisade country. Greenwood Lake, on the boundary line 
between New Jersey and New York, has been compared to the famous 
Windermere Lake of England. The hills are rugged and wild — Eagle 
Rock and Washington Rock. 

Some one hundred and forty miles from the sea in the northern Pal- 
isades, rises a cluster of mountains to which the early Dutch settlers gave 
the name of Catskills. They approach to within eight miles of the Hud- 
son, and, like an advanced bastion, command the valley for a considerable 
distance. They slope gradually on the western side toward the central part 
of New York State, running off into spurs and ridges in every direction. 
On the eastern side, on the contrary, they rise abruptly from the valley to 
a height of more than four thousand feet, resembling, when looked at from 
the river, a huge fist with the palm downward, the peaks representing the 
knuckles and the glens and cloves the spaces between them. The traveler 
seldom sees a greater variety of hill and valley. The Catskills contain 
some of the most picturesque scenery in the world. The beauties of the 
Clove and the falls of Kauterskill have been immortalized by Irving, 
Cooper, and Bryant. 

The Adirondacks is a savage mountain forest of immense area in the 
most advanced State of the Union. This region is therefore an anomaly. 
Until late years it has been given over to solitude and has had no counter- 
part on this continent east of what may be called the Far West. It pos- 
sesses a labyrinth of beautiful lakes and rivers, such as is to be found in no 
other mountain forest. Every year thousands of excursionists from the 
great urban districts invade its silent valleys, climb its rugged cliffs, and 
canoe on its limpid lakes. The Adirondacks is becoming one of the great 
summer playgrounds of the nations and yet there are many hundreds of 
square miles in this region that has never been trodden by the foot of the 
white man, except the surveyor. The wild beauty of this region is a con- 
tinuous discovery. 

Niagara Falls, with its Whirlpool and Whirlpool Rapids, is conceded 
to be the sublimest of the natural wonders of the world. Five great in- 
land, fresh water seas hurl themselves over these falls 165 feet high on 
their way to the Atlantic at the rate of 20,000,000 cubic feet of water 
a minute. Nowhere on this globe, three-fourths of the surface of which 
is covered with water, is there to be seen such a grand exhibition of the 
power of water. Men and women from over all the world, who see the sun 

486 



GRANDEUR OF AMERICAN SCENERY 

as moles, who look at the sea with blank souls, and for whom a land- 
scape or a skyline with its mountain peaks or the stars of the night are 
nothing but nature's hieroglyphics, will sit for hours and days at a time 
by the Niagara River, literally spellbound by the spectacle of the mad, 
thundering waters. The true psychology of Niagara Falls is yet to be 
written, but it is a spectacle that has borne many a spectator away from 
himself and out of his clay. Nature summons its formative might to im- 
press man with the presence of God in the fall of a river. The re- 
fined, educative value of Niagara is inestimable. Father Hennepin, who 
first viewed it in 1678, is said to have been moved to tears by its power. 

The glory of Niagara is rivaled by the magnificent falls half-way be- 
tween the great cataract and New York City — the Trenton Falls, which 
are fourteen miles from Utica. The River Kanata here makes a torrentu- 
ous descent from the mountains into the valley by a series of six falls, 
every one of which has a perfectly distinct character owing to the varied 
geological formation along the bed of the river. 

We would linger along the St. Lawrence and the Thousand Islands 
on the Canadian borders, but these pastel sketches require us to hasten 
across the vast continent on a rapid sight-seeing journey. Let us stop a 
moment on the small Island of Mackinac, in the Straits of Mackinac, con- 
necting Lakes Huron and Michigan. It contains in its six square miles 
some of the wildest and most picturesque scenery of the continent. The 
Arch Rock is a natural bridge one hundred and forty-five feet high and 
only three feet wide, spanning a chasm with airy grace. Fairy Arch is a 
similar formation rising from the sands of the beach. There is also the 
Sugar Loaf, a conical rock 134 feet high, breaking up the monotony of a 
grassy plain; there is Robinson's Folly, a stem bluff on the water's edge; 
Lover's Leap, a strange pile of rocks towering over the blue-green spruces; 
while the woods covering the small island contain very beautiful trees. 

Passing down from the Great Lakes, we come to the Blue Ridge Moun- 
tains in Pennsylvania. Here we find the glacier rocks cut in two by the 
mighty Delaware River, which opens through it a passage or canon called 
the Delaware Water Gap. The two mountains which form this great 
chasm are named fittingly — the one on the Pennsylvania side is Minsi, in 
memory of the Indians who made the region their hunting ground ; the one 
on the opposite bank is the Tammany, in memory of the grand chief who 
under the elm tree of Shackamaxon made a covenant with William Penn. 
The bold face of Tammany exhibits vast, frowning masses of naked rock, 
while the densely wooded Minsi displays a thicket of evergreen, with the 
railway tracks skirting it by the water's edge. One of the curiosities of 
the Gap is a wonderful lake on the summit of Tammany. Masses of bare 

487 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

graystone stand about its margin. In this unbroken solitude is a single 
Indian grave in a narrow cleft of rock. 

Along the winding range of the Blue Ridge, we view many objects of 
interest and beauty. Crossing the North Fork of the Cacapon River into 
West Virginia, one passes the imposing cliffs of Candy Castle. A few 
miles distant along the same stream is the famous natural ice-house called 
the Ice Mountain. Then near Romney we have Hanging Rock and the 
view from the yellow banks. Farther on, we pass through Mill Spring 
Gap and wonder at the long, regularly scalloped ridge of the Trough 
Mountains. A few miles from Petersburg one reaches the pinnacles, one 
of which bears a crude resemblance to the Obelisk of Luxor, and the other 
to a monumental spire in Gothic style. Cathedral Rock is the wonder of 
the region — a vast minster with a great portal, a pointed arch, a tall spire 
with its pinnacles, turrets, oriels, and double arched windows. Below, 
the foundations are laid in square cut blocks; the sides are ribbed with in- 
clining buttresses; stranger than all, the short, unfinished tower has not 
been omitted. 

The Natural Bridge of Virginia has a grandeur not equaled in any part 
of the world. It is in the southeastern corner of Rockbridge county, in 
the midst of the wild Blue Ridge scenery, fourteen miles from Lexington 
and about thirty-five miles from Lynchburg. The arch is some two hundred 
feet high and surmounted by solid live rock, over which grow giant white 
oaks. The rocky sides of the arch have tempted many a climber, and 
among the names of the daring ones, who have crept up part of the way, 
is that of George Washington. 

The Natural Cave is located in Edmonson County, Kentucky. 
Here we find five hundred known caverns penetrating a level plateau 
rising out of a limestone plain. This plateau is held up by a capping 
of massive sandstone. These many caves have been carved out by the 
action of the water on the carboniferous limestone. In passing through 
the limestone the water becomes charged with lime and this is redeposited 
forming stalactites and stalagmites. The upper member of the limestone 
contains iron pyrites and through the agency of moisture and air upon 
these and the limestone, sulphate of lime or gypsum is formed and the 
gypsum crystals incrust the walls and ceilings in the drier and upper 
portions, more especially in Mammoth Cave, the largest of these caves, 
where beautiful and fantastic figures of sparkling white are formed. 
These gypsum formations grow out of the rock as hoar-frost grows out of 
the ground. The stalactite formations in Mammoth Cave, while beau- 
tiful, especially in some of the great domes, are surpassed by the wonder- 
ful pendants, alabaster and many onyx columns, and translucent curtains 




NATURAL BRIDGE OF VIRCxINIA— This is one of nature's strangest moods— The mountain 

forms a perfect areh 200 feet high— It is surmounted by solid rock over which 

grow giant white oaks — Washington climbed this rock barrier. 




LAi;(.l-.i SKA OF FHKSH WATER IN THE WORLD— The area of this chain of five lakes is 

•JO, 000 s(iuare miles (larger than England, Scotland and Wales combined) — These 

great inland seas are important factors in the development of American 

commerce — The cities around the Great Lakes are developing more 

rapidly than any group of cities in th^ world. 



GRANDEUR OF AMERICAN SCENERY 

in several of the caves in other parts of Edmonson County; but no cave 
'approaches the Mammoth in size and sublimity of its avenues, its awe- 
inspiring domes, the mysterious rivers and in the rare beauty of the fes- 
toons of flowers and sparkling crystals ornamenting miles of avenues. 

The tableland of the Blue Ridge in the valley of the French Broad 
River in North Carolina is another part of the country which is almost as 
replete with strange geological phenomena and startling contrasts as the 
Yellowstone or the Yosemite. The geographical center of the region is 
Asheville, over 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. The view from the 
city embraces on one side interminable ranges of mountains, on the other 
the deep, savage valley. The river is torrent-like, boiling and bounding, 
cut by rapids and tumbling waterfalls, detaching from its steep banks 
masses of rocks that stand column-like or undermining the cliffs which in 
many places hang over its course threatening momentarily to topple down. 
Mt. Mitchell here is the highest peak east of the Rockies. 

The sun-kissed hills of the Southland, washed by the blue waters of 
the gulf and the Southern Atlantic, form a garden-land, appareled in trop- 
ical foliage — an American Mediterranean. 

The scenery of the Atlantic region, rugged and grand as it may be, 
does not compare in any way with the mighty aspects of nature west of 
the Great Plains. In the Rocky Mountains, or in the California ranges, 
we step into a Land of the Gods — an American Olympus. There we find 
the most extraordinary scenery preserved as a recreation-ground for the 
nation. The greatest of America's natural wonders are the Yellowstone 
and the Yosemite Parks, which are described in the chapter devoted to 
Beautiful American Parks. 

After crossing the Wyoming border and the Laramie Plains, we reach 
the first buttresses of the Rockies. On the way there one meets the curious 
buttes, which are grouped together like giant fortresses, with fantastic 
towers and walls, lonely, weird, and strong. The Church Butte is the 
grandest of all ; it looks like a gigantic cathedral falling into decay, quaint 
in its crumbling ornaments, majestic in its height and breadth, surrounded 
by the barren waste. 

The Rocky Mountains in many respects surpass the Alps. From the 
summit of Mount Lincoln, on a clear day, a view is obtained which could 
not be duplicated in Switzerland or Italy. Peaks ascend so thickly that 
nature seems to have built a dividing wall across the universe. There 
are 130 of them; thirty of these are not less than 13,000 feet high, al- 
most the altitude of Mount Blanc; fifty rise above 14,000 feet. It is 
only the Himalayas which could present such an aggregation of lofty 
mountains. The virgin beauty of the Alpine snow plains is changed in 

4.91 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

form, for the snow in the Rockies accumulates in banks or masses but 
does not conceal the landscape, as it does on the Alpine plateaux. But 
the Alps never present anything as curious as the various canons of Col- 
orado, the Grand Canon, Labyrinth Canon, Cataract Canon, Marble 
Canon, and one hundred others cut by ancient glaciers through limestone 
or marble. 

In contrast with the Atlantic coast, the whole Pacific seaboard pre- 
sents a bewildering variety of scenery, fantastic in its aspects. The Sierras 
descend almost into the ocean and the tremendous waves of the Pacific 
have scripted strange and wondrous shapes into the cliff of the shore, beat- 
ing out caverns wherever the lower strata were mere conglomerate, de- 
taching huge column-like rocks on which myriads of sea birds perch. 
The Golden Gate has been described a thousand times in prose and in 
verse but a book could be written on the wonderful Mendocino coast 
alone. It is the gate through which the sun in his majestic splendor 
passes from the American continent to the Western seas, night and the stars 
stealing in behind. But nature, in her generosity of beauty and utility, 
has built into the Western wall of the continent at San Francisco a golden 
sea-gate. This wonderful gate forms the entrance and exit for the com- 
merce of the Pacific. Two great, gray rocks jut into the waves, and be- 
tween them the deep, blue tide flows in and out. But with the even- 
ing comes a change. The sun now touches the heavens and earth and 
the sea with his magic brush of fire and the low clouds glow with a golden 
fleece; then the rocks become burnished, and a sea of molten gold sweeps 
through the Golden Gate. A new, strange world seems suddenly to have 
dawned upon the senses of the spectator, but with every passing moment 
there is a change in tint, until the splendor of light fades into the steal- 
ing purple shadows, and night spreads its mantle upon shore and sea. 
Nowhere on the globe does one get such vivid sunset color effects. A 
wild exultation flames up in the heart of almost every beholder. Nature is 
almost garish in its splendor here, so that it may not escape even the dullest 
soul. One who has seen a Golden Gate sunset, never forgets it. 



492 



PART VI CHAPTER XXIII 



BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN PARKS 



"Go forth under the open sky, and list to nature's teachings." — Bryant. 

CIVILIZATION is a destroyer as well as a creator. It first de- 
stroys nature — and then erects its counterpart in art. It fells 
the majestic forests, it despoils mighty mountains, it harnesses 
silver rivers, it bridges silent chasms in its utilitarian spirit, and 
then proceeds to restore or imitate the lost primeval grandeur. And so 
civilization has been fast sweeping out of existence what was once the sav- 
age beauty of the American continent, to take coal, and iron, silver and 
gold from the breast of nature, until to-day in all parts of the country it is 
designing and creating thousands of public parks and beautiful drives 
through the art of the horticulturist. 

The dense populations in all the large American cities have found 
that to live without nature is not to live at all. Buildings have been razed 
and thoroughfares diverted to create broad expanses of greensward and 
winding paths, hedged with blossoming flowers and arched with spread- 
ing trees as "breathing places" for the populace. Every American city 
to-day is studded with public parks, like emeralds set in rings of gold. 
Every small village has its "green" under the shade of towering oaks, and 
elms, and maples. There are probably more than ten thousand of these 
public parks in the United States. 

We caught a glimpse of nature's virginal glory in the chapter on 
the "Grandeur of American Scenery"; we will now take a hurried journey 
through the reservations that have been set aside as National Parks — ' 
vast empires in themselves. These domains alone are larger in area than 
some of the kingdoms of the Old World. Only a generation ago the 
Grand Valley of California, 500 miles long and 50 miles wide, was but 
one sea of golden and purple flowers. Now it is plowed and pastured. 
The gardens of the Sierras are trampled ruthlessly by settlers; the slopes 
of the Rockies are laid bare by lumbermen. But, even with this de- 
spoliation by encroaching civilization, some forty million acres of land 
still clad in its primeval grandeur have been reserved for the benefit of 
the people. The National Government keeps as a playground for its chil- 
dren and adults five parks and thirty-eight forest preserves, which equal 
or surpass in beauty the most marvelous scenery of the various continents. 

493 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

The largest National Park is the Yellowstone. It is a wilderness 
on the broad summit of the Rockies, a place of fountains and brooks which 
on their way to the sea grow to be the greatest rivers of America. The 
central portion is a wooded, volcanic plateau rising to a height of 8,000 
feet above the sea, and surrounded by a host of imposing mountains. 
Numberless lakes reflect the sky, united by a system of streams that spurt 
out of hot lava beds or tumble from snowy peaks. 

All the common aspects of nature that one encounters in the wilder- 
ness are here to be found. The Yellowstone is like a precious jewel case, 
rich in gems and diadems of nature. Geysers rise amid boiling springs, 
whose basins are arrayed in the most gorgeous colors ; mud volcanoes ; hot 
paint pots, whose contents defy classification, plash and roar in bewilder- 
ing manner. In cool fountains, petrified forests are revealed, tier above 
tier where they grew, rigid and silent in their crystalline beauty. There 
are hills of crystal, hills of sulphur, of glass, of ashes; hills covered with 
tender bloom, and hills baked in "hell's fire" the color of brick. 

These bewildering wonders are now under the protection of troops 
of United States cavalry. Under their care, the forests are protected both 
from axe and from fire; the curiosities are preserved, and the furry and 
feathered fauna of the region, which at one time was disappearing rap- 
idly, is now increasing. The Yellowstone is the highest and coolest of all 
the National Parks. Frosts occur every month of the year. Its altitude, 
which varies from 6,000 to 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, makes 
it a wonderful health resort. 

The Yellowstone has been justly called nature's laboratory; its four 
thousand hot springs and one hundred geysers, innumerable paint pots, 
flasks, retorts, seem to hold or belch a galaxy of color and substance — 
no two of them are the same in temperature, color, or composition. And 
what an ideal place for the seeker after the moods and mysteries of na- 
ture. The ground sounds hollow under foot; now and then it shakes when 
the subterranean thunder starts rumbling. In the moonlight or under 
an overcast sky, the geysers seem to be monstrous dancing, tottering ghosts. 

In the center of the park we come to the famous Yellowstone Lake. 
It is about twenty miles long and fifteen miles wide and lies at a height 
of nearly 8,000 feet. Let us follow the noble river that issues from it — 
behold, we stand before the wizardry of nature — it is the Grand Caiion 
into which it thunders in two magnificent falls. The wild beauty of the 
Caiion cannot be described — it must be seen by one's own eyes. Its walls 
from top to bottom glow in a glory of color. All the earth seems to be 
writhing in sensuous color — passions in white, green, yellow, blue, red, 
retaining its dazzling hues while beaten by centuries of wind and rain. 

494 



BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN PARKS 

Here and there a herd of buffaloes is seen grazing. Bears growl through 
the canon — touched by civilization and becoming tame since they have 
found that no danger threatens them. 

On the glorious Sierra Nevada, a section of wilderness thirty-six 
miles in length and forty-eight miles in breadth, has been set apart — it 
is the Yosemite National Park. The famous Yosemite Valley lies in the 
heart of it and there are found the headwaters of the Toulumne and Merced 
Rivers. The Yosemite is quite different in aspect and character from 
the Yellowstone. Here nature appears in a gentler, less turbulent mood. 
The ground is frequently shaken by earthquakes, but the chemical experi- 
ments of Mother Earth are not as disturbing and obvious in the Yosemite 
as they are in the Yellowstone. Instead of ghoulish geysers we find pic- 
turesque, dreamy waterfalls. 

While this glorious park embraces exhibits of every one of the Sierra's 
treasures, it is extremely accessible. It is only 150 miles from San Fran- 
cisco, and many lines of railroad lead to its foot-hills. The park is well 
divided into lower, middle and Alpine regions. The lower, with an aver- 
age elevation of 5,000 feet, is the region of the great forests of gigantic 
sugar-pine, the largest and most beautiful of all the pines in the world. 
The yellow pine is next in rank, and then come the Douglas spruce, and 
the "big tree," the Sequoia, the noblest of a noble race. The middle 
region is dotted with hundreds of glacier lakes and glacier meadows. It 
shows the wonderful examples of glacier pavement. Here is the region 
of primeval granite, heavily sculptured by glaciers, and graphically telling 
the story of the glacial period on the Pacific side of the continent. The 
most attractive phenomena are the glacial pavements, flat or gently undu- 
lating areas of solid granite over which the ancient glaciers slowly crept. 
Granite, slate, and quartz alike have been planed to a wonderful finish, 
which in the sunshine gives the impression of burnished silver. Above, 
tower the granite domes and peaks of the Sierra. 

The most interesting feature of Grant National Park and Sequoia 
National Park is the "big trees," or sequoias, which give the latter park 
its name. The "big tree" is nature's forest masterpiece. It belongs to 
the most ancient flora of the world. Old rocks show that this genus was 
widely spread over the earth, but in the present age the big tree is only 
found in California and in a few groves of Oregon. The big tree attains 
a height of 300 feet and a diameter of 30 feet. The bark of the full- 
grown tree is from one to two feet thick and is of a rich cinnamon brown. 
The big tree keeps its youth longer than any of its woodland neighbors. 
While silver firs are old in their second or third century, the big tree does 
not reach its prime before its fifteen hundredth year, nor does it show signs 

495 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

of age before it has weathered 3,000 winters. Many of these American 
trees are much older than this. 

With the giant parks, we must mention among the nation's greatest 
playgrounds, some thirty-eight forest reservations — a magnificent realm of 
woods. In the million-acre Black Hills Reserve of South Dakota, the east- 
ernmost of the great forest reserves, there are delightful sauntering grounds 
in open parks of yellow pine. 

The Rocky Mountain Reserves — Teton, Yellowstone, Lewis and 
Clark, Bitter Root, Priest River, and Flathead — comprise more than twelve 
million acres of unclaimed, rough, forest-clad mountains, where the 
mightiest streams of the country have their source. The vast Pacific re- 
serves in Washington and Oregon include more than 12,500,000 acres of 
magnificent forest, peopled with gigantic trees. Along the moist, balmy, 
foggy, west flank of the mountains, facing the sea, the woods reach their 
highest development, and, excepting the California redwoods, are the 
largest on this continent. Leaving the heavy shadows of the woods, one 
steps almost everywhere into natural gardens of lilies, orchids, and wild 
roses. Along the lower slopes, especially in Oregon, there are lilies and 
rhododendron in glorious masses of purple in the spring. 

The Mount Rainier Forest Reserves present some of the most won- 
derful scenery in the whole world. Of all the volcanoes, which once 
blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest. It bears the 
most picturesque forests, and, with the exception of the Shasta, is the high- 
est. Its massive dome rises out of the forests like a world by itself to 
a height of 15,000 feet. The forests cease at a height of 6,000 feet, and 
then begins a zone of the loveliest flowers, fifty miles in circuit and two 
miles wide, after which the icy summits rise into the sky. 

The Sierra of California is the most beautiful and the most useful 
of the forest preserves, embracing four million acres of the grandest scenery 
and largest trees on the continent. 

The Grand Canon Reserve of Arizona, two million acres in area, is 
noted for its supreme grandeur and beauty. There one finds suddenly 
the most tremendous canon in the world. It is 6,000 feet deep and from 
ten to fifteen miles wide. The vast space between the walls is crowded 
with Nature's most powerful and weirdest structures — a city of giants 
adorned with an endless, bewildering variety of battlement spire and tower. 

Thus, we might spend a lifetime in steeping the senses with beauty 
on the American continent, in intoxicating the vision with riots of ravish- 
ing color and form, in intellectual and archeological study in search of 
the secret of nature's genius — for truly it is not in distant Italy, or Greece, 
or Egypt that nature created her masterpieces, but here in our homeland, 

496 



PART VI CHAPTER XXIV 

GREAT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE 



"The architect 
Built his great heart into these sculptured stones. 
And with him toiled his children, — and their lives 
^Vere builded, with his own, into the walls." 

— Longfellow. 



A] 



' * 4 RCHITECTURE Is the work of nations," said Ruskin. It is 
more than that — it is the physiognomy of a nation ; it shows 
not only the features of the face of a nation, the expression 
of its countenance, but it shows the predominant temper, the 
qualities of mind — it denotes the character of the people. 

Upon this scientific foundation let us record at the beginning of this 
chapter that America is producing the truest and the greatest architecture 
of modern times — architecture with virile individuality and vigorous char- 
acter. If architecture is the composite face of a people, then we have in 
our national structures the spirit of all the Old World masters in our public 
buildings. 

The migration of a million immigrants a year from all parts of the 
earth infuses into our nationality the souls of the builders of the Pyramids, 
the Greek temples, the Byzantine churches, the Romanesque monasteries, 
the Gothic cathedrals, the palaces of the Renaissance. In our great Jew- 
ish population — far exceeding that of Jerusalem in its zenith of glory — 
we have the blood that erected the Temple of Solomon. The Hellenic 
age comes back to us from the Mediterranean. The spirit of the Pantheon 
and the Coliseum is here — Italy and France, Spain and England — all live 
again in the New World and transfuse themselves into the new American 
race. 

Behold the result! Here in America — ^under the spell of the spirit 
of liberty — emancipated from the monarchial forms of the Old World — 
we see huge structures of granite and marble rise — structures which almost 
stagger the imagination. The courage, daring, indomitable will of the 
American people are typified in the giant steel edifices that stand in the 
cities throughout the continent — monuments to American energy and prog- 
ress. The sky-scrapers in the great metropolises are mighty creations of 
the imagination — united with the genius of invention, the power of in- 
dustry, and the skill of hands and brains. The Government buildings, 
courthouses, post-ofRces, and State capitols in the forty-eight States (see 

497 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

the illustrations In this book) symbolize the present status of American 
civilization — the remodeling of Old World forms on substantial founda- 
tions for the purpose of utility and business administration, according to 
the needs of an industrial age. Photographic reproductions of many of 
these buildings are given in these pages. 

It must be remembered that we are an industrial people, building a 
new nation, and we do not claim to have cultivated the sestheticism of 
the ancients. We erect railroad stations, museums, churches, schools first 
for purposes of utility — to meet the needs of the people. The element 
of aestheticism that may be shown in this undertaking is, in the present 
state of our national development, secondary. Ruskin remarked that the 
value of architecture depends on two distinct characters: "the impression 
it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural 
creation." The first we claim in the highest degree; the second we are de- 
veloping with our economic system and will perfect, as did the older civ- 
ilizations, as we acquire more leisure. As Ruskin also said : "Better the 
rudest work that tells a story or records a fact than the richest without 
meaning." 

Let us now briefly survey the general development of American archi- 
tecture. America has had a distinctive national architecture at two dif- 
ferent periods of her history — during the Colonial period and during the 
Twentieth Century. The first settlers found no aboriginal style that could 
be developed and improved into any sort of architectural order. The 
conical wigwams of the East and North, the primitive community houses 
of the South and West were very unpromising models from which to 
start. 

When the English established their settlements on the Eastern sea- 
board, the Dutch in New Amsterdam, the French in Canada, the Carolinas 
and Louisiana, the Spaniards In Florida, New Mexico and California, they 
built their homes according to the fashion prevailing in Europe during the 
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Yet a distinctly American style 
was evolved. Even though the builders brought over a large amount of 
their materials, the new structures assumed a character different from their 
prototypes, owing to the difference in climate and building materials. 
Where in the old country the work was executed in stone or in brick with 
stone details, the construction in this country was in wood or in brick with 
wood ornamentation. The Roman orders were the basis of every archi- 
tectural design; but the proportions adapted to stone structure were too 
massive and ponderous to be repeated in a lighter material. Thus columns 
and pilasters became higher in proportion to their diameter, entablatures 
lower in proportion to the height of columns and pilasters. The facile 

498 




HAGNIFU'KNT AKCIlITErTURE IN AMKUU'A— St. ratrick's t'atlu^lrnl ou Fifth Aveuuo, New 

Yoi'k City — Tlie finest types of artliitecture are found in clnirohes, libraries, and 

government buildings — Private residences equal tliose of many royal palaces. 



GREAT AJVIERICAN ARCHITECTURE 

nature of wood enabled builders to give the details a delicacy to which 
stone could not lend itself. 

The Colonial house, so perfectly individual, was formal and stately; 
it avoided all picturesque or romantic detail; its studied symmetry, its 
fastidious precision indicated a large but ceremonious hospitality, drawing 
the line very strictly between the aristocracy and the common people. 
Old mansions of that type are preserved with reverence along the shores 
of New England, especially in Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, in Salem 
and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Newport, Rhode Island. Within 
a range of fifty miles from the coast, they are not unusual in the Middle 
States. We find many on the banks of the principal waterways in Vir- 
ginia and other Atlantic and Southern States. Many of them have passed 
unscathed through the social and political storms which took place between 
the Colonial period and our own. 

Early religious buildings in America showed the same adaptation of 
European styles to American conditions. In California and the Southwest, 
the Spanish missionaries had the Indians erect adobe or rubble mission- 
houses with arcaded cloisters and porches, churches with low towers and 
belfries piously preserving the characteristics of their rural Spanish proto- 
types. But here again the difference in the material employed invested 
those structures with a certain originality. California is now adapting 
this Spanish-American architecture introduced by the missionaries to her 
scenery and the building materials found in the region. The beautiful 
buildings of the Leland Stanford University at Palo Alto show what 
powerful effects can be attained through a judicious use of those old styles 
modified to suit climate and conditions. In Florida the adaptation of 
the more monumental forms of Spanish art to modern use, as in the Hotel 
Ponce de Leon and the Alcazar of Saint Augustine, has been so successful 
that it will probably be employed more widely in that picturesque region. 

After the close of the Colonial period, we witness in our public build- 
ings a return to the Greek and Roman models. One of the most interesting 
of these classic efforts was constructed by Thomas Jefferson at his home in 
Monticello and at the University of Virginia, which he founded. It was 
while he was a cabinet minister and later President that the project of 
erecting a national capitol and an official residence for the Executive as- 
sumed a definite shape. His powerful influence was an important factor 
in securing for the construction of those buildings the best available talent. 
This was very fortunate, for the Capitol and Executive Mansion have 
served as the models for countless national buildings and the majority of 
State capitols, all over the country. The National Capitol as it stands to- 
day is the work of Charles Bulfinch and Thomas U. Walter. After the 

501 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

capltol had been burnt by the British, in the War of 1812, Bulfinch was 
placed in charge of the work of reconstruction. It was Walter who ex- 
tended the original plans by building the great wings, and the lofty central 
dome. 

The function of designing and building Federal courthouses, custom- 
houses, post-offices, and other national structures was in the hands of the 
supervising architect of the Treasury Department for many years, that 
official having at a time as many as fifty or sixty buildings in course of 
construction. The result has been an established style in our national 
buildings. 

There came a period when private architecture discarded the Greek 
and Roman styles, following the Gothic forms. Immediately upon the 
Gothic vogue there followed the so-called Queen Anne revival initiated by 
Norman Shaw. Any account of the architecture in the middle of the 
Nineteenth Century would be incomplete without a mention of Richard 
Upjohn's work. He has been called the "father of American architec- 
ture" ; he did not initiate any purely American movement, but, at a time 
when soberness and reserve were the qualities least observable in American 
buildings, he rendered a great service to the country by returning to pure 
archaeological Gothic. We are indebted to him for Trinity Church and 
Saint Thomas Church in New York, Grace Church and Christ Church in 
Brooklyn, Grace Church in Providence, St. Paul's in Buffalo, St. Peter's 
in Albany, the Bangor Cathedral, St. Paul's in Baltimore; also many other 
churches. Upjohn became president of the American Association of Archi- 
tects, when it was founded in 1866, and till his death in 1878 devoted his 
energies to elevating the level of the architectural profession in this 
country. 

America is becoming a nation of magnificent cathedrals and church 
edifices. The most beautiful among them is the St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
and the St. Thomas Church, in New York, perhaps the most splendid 
church of this side of the world. The new cathedral of St. John the Di- 
vine, now in course of erection on Morningside Heights, New York, is a 
masterpiece in Gothic. 

In the past forty years architectural schools have been established 
in this country and have contributed greatly to freeing the native architect 
from bondage to European methods and standards. We may point to 
many magnificent private residences throughout the United States, but it 
is in commercial architecture that America has developed a style all her 
own. Commercial buildings have gradually eliminated massive masonry 
foundations and the huge piers anchoring the structure. The lower floors 
are used for display purposes — consequently columns and piers must be 

502 



GREAT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE 

abolished or reduced to a minimum. The walls are done away with; 
gigantic steel structures take their place. 

Architects insisted until very recently on building their sky-scrapers 
on the plans of Greek temples, raising the lintel to the top floor and re- 
taining on the ground floor the pillars characteristic of the various Greek 
orders. It is only within the past ten years that the sky-scraper has as- 
sumed a distinct individuality. The Woolworth building, in New York, 
the tallest building in the whole world, is absolutely and exclusively 
American in its general plan, the treatment of its facades, and its orna- 
mentation. The Metropolitan building is another imposing example. 

Many bank buildings assume the form of Greek temples; some of 
them are good imitations of classical monuments. The large number of 
libraries built by public institutions and made possible by the munificence 
of multi-millionaires has led architects to evolve a beautiful type of build- 
ing well suited for that purpose. One of the best examples of that type 
of architecture is the New York Public Library. Educational buildings 
have been generally designed according to classical styles. Yale, Harvard, 
Princeton, and many other universities preserve a classical atmosphere. 
The various buildings which have been added in recent years to Columbia 
University, West Point, Annapolis, Berkeley, and other institutions of 
learning are notable for their impressiveness. 

Art and industry are joining hands in the railroad stations in the 
larger American cities. The Union Station in Washington, District of 
Columbia, is an interesting type of building, monumental in appearance 
and harmonizing well with the other edifices of the capital. The Penn- 
sylvania Station in New York is an imposing structure. The Grand Cen- 
tral Station in New York is a gigantic structure with tremendous areas in 
which passages lead to subways and to various adjoining streets like huge 
arched vaults. The public concourse is an impressive hall which is beauti- 
ful in its conception. 

Thus, we might continue to travel through the United States, gazing 
upon many notable edifices and reading the whole story of the rise and 
development of the American nation in these tablets of stone and marble. 
Let us follow the rule of Ruskin : "When we build, let us think that we 
build forever. Let it not be for the present delight, nor for present use 
alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let 
us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones 
will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men 
will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substances of them: 
'See I this our fathers did for us.' " 

503 



PART VI CHAPTER XXV 



GREAT AMERICAN MUSEUMS 



"It is the treasure-house of the mind, wherein the monuments thereof 
are kept and preserved." — Fuller. 



MUSEUMS — the treasure houses of antiquity and the galleries 
of the arts and sciences — are the truest records of the prog- 
ress of the human family. More clearly than on the writ- 
ten page, can be traced the ambitions and passions of men, 
their habits and customs, in the creations that they leave behind — the 
armors, helmets and shields of warriors long gone; the robes and sandals 
of men whose feet trod the earth generations ago; the woven fabrics of 
women whose laughter rang through civilizations that were in their glory 
in centuries of the far past. 

It is weird indeed, and yet how close we come to life, when we touch 
the gems that adorned the throats of the lovers of past ages; when we 
stand before the petrified bodies of Egyptian kings; when we look upon 
the swords that once dripped with human blood. When we gaze in ad- 
miration upon the canvases painted by the hands of the masters, we can 
see in our mind's vision the brush of the painter as it dips into the colors 
on the palette, or the clay and scalpel in the firm hand of the sculptor. 

There was a time when these priceless relics of past ages were all 
treasured in the museums of the Old World. But that time is now also 
with the past. America to-day is becoming the keeper of the world's 
treasures. Magnificent edifices have been erected to hold the relics of 
stone, and bronze, and precious metals, the fabrics and utensils that relate 
the story of human development. Beautiful structures of marble, tem- 
ples of the Fine Arts, have been constructed to preserve the masterpieces 
of the world's greatest painters and sculptors. During the last genera- 
tion the treasures of the art world are being brought to America, until it 
seems that the American connoisseur is denuding Europe of its art and that 
in the coming years the work of the old masters will find its final resting 
place in the American museums and galleries. 

America never had any national museums until an act of Congress, 
in 1846, when the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, became cus- 
todian of various national collections. This institution, which is at pres- 
ent one of the greatest scientific institutions in the world, was created in 
accordance with the will of James Smithson, an Englishman born in 

504 




REMAINS OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CIVILIZATION — Palaces of the cliff dwellers who lived la 

New Mexico before the discovery of America — They constructed their principal villages 

on the mesas in the shelves of rocky cliffs. 



mf "^^■■^^^^^^IHBkf* 


» 




|r^ f 


^^;^,flngg|J|fc^|a|i»- « 





CO ROT 



A RIVER SCENE IN THE EVENING 
DUN COLLECTION 




RUBENS - THE HOLY FAMILN 
SMITH COLLECTION 




FRANS HALS YONKER ROMP 
ALTMAN COLLECTION 



VAN DYCK-DUKE OF RICHMOND 
MARQUAND COLLECTION 



REMBRANDT - PILOT WASHING HIS Hfi 
ALTMAN COLLECTION 




VELASQUL^-vn 
ALTMAN 



Myi AND THE PILGRIMS 
COLLECTION 



ROSA BONHEUR -THE HORSE FAIR - CORNELIUS VANDERBiLT C0LLEC1 



MASTERPIECES IN AMERICAN ART GALLERIES— Collection of paintings shown on these pages is reprO' 

duced by special permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New Yorlv — They show some ot 

the world's greatest Art treasures — JNearly every large city has its Art Museum. 







GALLERY 



Old World nuisterpioces 

being brought to the United States by private collectors — The canvases reproduced on these pages 
are estimated at a value exceeding $3,000,000 — Several American painters are included. 



GREAT AMERICAN MUSEUMS 

France, who never set foot in the United States, and who for unknown 
reasons bequeathed to this country an estate of over half a million dollars. 
The aims of the institution are: to stimulate men of talent; to make orig- 
inal researches by offering them suitable rewards ; and to diffuse knowledge 
by publishing periodical reports on progress in the various lines of scien- 
tific endeavor. The Smithsonian Institution is in charge of the National 
Museum of the United States, the designated depository for all the zoolog- 
ical, botanical, geological, ethnological, archaeological, and art collections 
belonging to the government. There we find the most complete collection 
in existence of documents and materials relative to the aborigines of North 
America. Later donations and Congressional appropriations have enabled 
the regents to establish a bureau of ethnology, a national zoological park, 
and an astrophysical observatory. 

Museums have been erected in nearly all the American cities. It 
would well repay any American to visit the most important scientific 
museums in the United States — the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory in New York, the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, and The Field Co- 
lumbian Museum in Chicago. The Army Medical Museum in Washing- 
ton is devoted to the structure of man, the effect and treatment of injuries 
and disease. The Commercial Museum of Philadelphia is the sole insti- 
tution of its kind in the United States. Almost every one of those mu- 
seums issues guide-books and invites the public to lectures on topics illus- 
trated in their various departments. The steady trend of museum de- 
velopment has been in the line of extending the educational influence of 
their collections and in making them useful to the whole people. 

This is the age of art in America. A half century ago there was not a 
single public gallery of art in this country. At present there is not a city 
which does not set aside at least one room of some public building in which 
are collected paintings or statues of artistic merit. The leading art mu- 
seums of this country are the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the 
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 
and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. 

The Metropolitan Museum is a treasure-house of the Fine Arts. Its 
growth has been fostered by individual initiative and love of the arts. It 
had no Government foundation, as did the great museums of Europe, 
which often are assisted by royal bounty. Municipal help did not come 
to the collections until the value of the museum's work had been clearly 
demonstrated. The first suggestion to establish a museum came from the 
great diplomatist, John Hay, in an after-dinner speech delivered in Paris. 
A few prominent New Yorkers met and considered the advisability of or- 

509 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

ganizing a museum of art in 1869. The museum was incorporated in the 
following year. A president and twenty-one trustees assumed the task 
which was then colossal ; every one of them had to give liberally from his 
own resources. 

The first exhibition hall was in the rooms of a dancing academy. 
One hundred and seventy-five paintings of the Dutch and Flemish schools, 
which had been purchased in Europe for the trustees, were hung and pre- 
sented to the public, together with a collection of various art works. The 
Legislature authorized the Department of Parks to erect a suitable museum 
building in Central Park in 1871. The Central Park building was in- 
augurated in 1880, and the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe collection of paint- 
ings, which had been bequeathed to the museum, was then placed on 
view for the first time. The presidents of the museum have all, one after 
another, left to the institution wonderful collections of paintings, statues, 
or curios. The Johnston, Marquand, and Morgan collections have greatly 
added to the treasures. The income of the Roger bequest of $5,000,000 
is constantly used in making the collections complete from a historical or 
artistic point of view. George A. Hearn offered a long sought opportunity 
to American artists by establishing a fund of $150,000, the income of 
which was to be spent in purchasing canvases by living American painters. 
Many other donations have enabled the museum to acquire large groups 
of paintings or statues, one of the most notable being the Thomas Fortune 
Ryan donation which added a remarkable collection of Rodin's work to 
the sculpture section of the Metropolitan. F. C. Hewitt and John Stew- 
art Kennedy left $1,500,000 each to the museum. 

The Metropolitan Museum has the largest collection of American 
paintings, both old and modern, to be found anywhere. Among the most 
famous canvases from the brush of native artists we may mention Whist- 
ler's "A Lady in Grey," "Nocturne in Green and Gold," "Nocturne in 
Black and Gold," several of La Farge's paintings, Winslow Homer's 
"Cannon Rock" and "The Gulf Stream," William Chase's "Fish" and 
"Carmencita," John W. Alexander's "Study in Black and Green," Mur- 
phy's "The Old Barn," and Horatio Walker's "Sheepfold." The more 
modern men are represented: Dessar, Dearth, Mary Cassatt, Arthur B. 
Davies, Thayer, Tryon, Vedder, Ranger, Alden, Weir, and others. 

A collection of works by American sculptors is now being formed. 
The work of the foremost American master of sculpture, Saint Gaudens, 
is represented here by replicas of three bas-reliefs. George Gray Bar- 
nard's marble group, "I feel two natures struggling within me," Paul Way- 
land's "The Bohemian," MacMonnies "Bacchante," exiled from Boston, 
Gutzon Borglum's "The Mares of Diomedes" are rare exhibits of New 

510 



GREAT AMERICAN MUSEUMS 

World sculpture. Several American sculptors have won fame in animal 
sculpture. Foremost among those represented in the Museum are William 
Rimmer, A. P. Proctor, Edward Kemeys, and Anna Hyatt. A fine ex- 
ample of realistic portraiture is D. C. French's bust of Emerson. 

The masters of the foreign schools, classical and modem, are repre- 
sented by canvases which place the Metropolitan on a par with the best 
European galleries. We can only mention Rubens' "The Holy Family," 
"The Portrait of a Man," by Franz Hals; "The Portrait of James Stuart," 
by Van Dyck; "The Portrait of Don Sebastian Martinez," by Goya; "A 
Seaport," by Claude Lorrain; "The Sleep of Diana," by Corot; "The 
Brothers Van de Velde," by Meissonnier; "English Landscape," by Gains- 
borough, and many other masterpieces. 

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts was opened to the public in 1876, 
after six years of conscientious work on the part of the trustees. Several 
Boston institutions wished to have a suitable place in which to exhibit the 
various artistic or archseological works in their possession. The Institute 
of Technology needed a place to keep its casts ; Harvard College needed a 
fireproof building in which to place the Gray collection of prints; the 
Athenaeum had closed its art galleries in order to make room for its books. 
The several bodies were brought together and determined to build a mu- 
seum, relying for its support on voluntary contributions from the citizens 
of Boston. 

The building was begun on the site dear to all Bostonians — Cop- 
ley Square. Gifts soon began to pour in and also large collections, like 
the Way collection of Egyptian antiquities, the Japanese treasures of Dr. 
C. G. Weld and Dr. W. S. Bigelow, the Japanese pottery collected by 
Edward D. Morse, and the superb gifts of Dr. Denman Ross. 

Many masterpieces were bought, including ten paintings of the Dutch 
school, purchased at the sale of the Demidoff Gallery, Turner's "Slave- 
ship," the beautiful Velasquez, "Don Balthazar Carlos and His Dwarf," 
and a portrait of Franz Hals. In the Ross collection, which was pre- 
sented to the Museum in 1906, are a Monet, a Tiepolo, a Philippe de 
Champaigne, and two Turners, besides exquisite examples of Persian il- 
luminations. Modern pictures have been bought chiefly from the be- 
quests of Sylvanus A. Denio and William Wilkins Warren, each of these 
funds amounting to $50,000. The American School of Painting is nobly 
represented in Boston and is perhaps the most interesting of its depart- 
ments. Owing to inadequacy of space, it was found necessary to build 
a new and larger museum on the Fenway, standing on twelve acres and 
fronting on Huntington Avenue. The new structure is laid out on the 
general plan of a series of courts surrounded by smaller rooms, which 

511 



AMERICA: THE LAND WE LOVE 

makes It possible for large objects to have open space around them, while 
the smaller ones can be studied at close range. 

The Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington is one of the modern art 
palaces in America. It has no connection with the Government, but is 
wholly the result of the philanthropy of a wealthy citizen, William Wil- 
son Corcoran, who died in 1893. It was opened in a building facing the 
War Department. This has now been superseded by the splendid gallery 
on Seventeenth Street, facing the Executive grounds. The Corcoran Gal- 
lery, including the building, has cost $1,600,000. 

The Corcoran Gallery contains several old paintings, including the 
"Virgin and Child" by Murillo and "Christ Bound" by Van Dyck. There 
is a Corot and many canvases by modern French painters. One room is 
devoted to portraits, and the visitor finds there the most complete collec- 
tion of portraits of presidents of the United States. Among the marbles, 
Hiram Powers' "Greek Slave" is perhaps the most celebrated. The Barye 
bronzes are especially notable as the largest extant collection of fine animal 
sculpture by this great French modeler. 

These travels through the American museums and art galleries would 
require months of study. There are the galleries in Detroit, and Chicago, 
and nearly all the large cities. The private and public galleries in the 
cities throughout the country are treasure-houses of aesthetic wealth. Here, 
in these pages, we can leave merely an impression of these riches, and re- 
mark with Goldsmith: "I love everything that's old — old friends, old 
times, old manners, old books, old wine," that come to us from the ages 
when men were molding the centuries with their hands and minds. We 
utilize the tools and labors of the generations so that "men may rise," as 
Tennyson said, "on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things." 



512 




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